Jan Ruff O'Herne
Dutch East Indies, (1923–2019)
Jeanne Alida "Jan" Ruff-O'Herne was a Dutch Australian of Irish ancestry and human rights activist campaigning internationally against wartime sexual violence. During World War II, Ruff-O'Herne was forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. Ruff-O'Herne spoke publicly from 1992 to urge a formal apology from the Japanese government and to highlight the predicament of other "comfort women."
During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies, Ruff-O'Herne and thousands of other Dutch women were forced into physical labor at a prisoner-of-war camp in Indonesia. In February 1944, Ruff-O'Herne, at 21 years of age, along with six other young women, was taken by Japanese officers to a comfort station named “House of Seven Seas” established by the Japanese military in Java Island, Indonesia. Over the following three months, the women were repeatedly raped and beaten.
Ruff-O’Herne testified at the International Public Hearing on Japanese War Crimes in Tokyo, Japan in December 1992, sharing her story for the first time, and at the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery in Tokyo, Japan in 2000.
Among her works of activism, Ruff-O’Herne appeared before the United States House of Representatives as part of a congressional hearing on "Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women" in 2007, contributing to the passing of the US House Resolution 121 that calls for the Japanese government to take legal responsibilities.
Legacy
Ruff-O'Herne’s activism raised global awareness on the issue of Japanese military sexual slavery in places like Australia, expanding this movement to other continents.