Rosa Henson
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Maria Rosa Henson also known as "Lola Rosa" was the first Filipina to tell the world of her story as a comfort woman for the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. In 1992 when she was 65, she decided it was time to speak up. Until then only two people knew of her secret, her mother and her husband and both of them were already dead. After coming out publicly with her story, Lola Rosa decided to write about her harrowing experience into a book called “Comfort Woman: A Slave of Destiny.” In her book, Lola Rosa provided an achingly straightforward voice to the erstwhile silent and invisible reality of the Filipino Comfort Women. Almost 200 Filipino women followed Lola Rosa’s example as they decided to reveal themselves and their stories for the first time, not only to the world but to their loved ones as well. The lolas(grandmas) joined victims from other countries, notably from Korea and China, and filed a class action lawsuit against Japan. Together they are demanding justice in the form of a formal apology from the Japanese government, the inclusion of all the war-time atrocities committed by the Japanese in the Japan’s school history books, and monetary reparations to compensate for all the abuses and violence committed against the women. To date, the Japanese government continues to deny legal responsibility and refuses to pay the victims. Responding to the growing pressure of continued protests and appeals by the survivors and their supports, Japan set up the Asian Women’s Fund in 1995 and collected monies from private Japanese citizens and offered them to the victims as “atonement payment.” Henson died of heart attack in 1997, a year after her autobiography was published and not before she decided to accept the money from AWF.
