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A Dutch victim of Japanese sexual enslavement will testify alongside two Korean victims before the U.S. Congress in a hearing on "comfort women" scheduled for Feb. 15. It will be the first time such victims have testified in House hearings.

The hearings before the House subcommittee on the Asia-Pacific follow a resolution introduced last week by Rep. Michael Honda (D-California) urging Japan to apologize and accept responsibility for the abuse of thousands of such women during World War II.

The Dutch witness is Jan Ruff-O'Herne (85) who was taken captive with her family in Java, Indonesia when the Japanese invaded the Southeast Asian country during the Pacific War. The 19-year-old woman was forced into sexual slavery and had to endure rape and other violence at the hands of Japanese soldiers. She survived the experience and married after the war, but kept the secret from her husband and children.

O'Herne came forward to speak out about the experience at an international hearing on war crimes held in Tokyo in 1992. She was inspired to do so after learning of the struggle of three Korean former comfort women to win an apology and compensation from Japan. O'Herne wrote the book “50 Years of Silence” about her experiences and has taken the lead in international campaigns and hearings against Japan’s atrocities.

Other witnesses scheduled to testify include Korean former comfort women Lee Yong-soo and Kim Gun-ja, Rep. Honda, Soh Ok-cha, the president of the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women, and Mindy Kotler, the director of Asia Policy Point, a research center on Japan and northeast Asia.

Several resolutions on comfort women have been submitted to the U.S. Congress in the past. A similar one passed the House International Relations Committee unanimously last September, but was shelved at the plenary session after heavy lobbying by Japan. The latest resolution stands a high chance of passage as it has the support of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Committee on Foreign Affairs member Eni Faleomavaega.

Japan is reportedly making an all-out effort to hamper the passage of the resolution by hiring a former House speaker to lobby against it.

(englishnews@chosun.com )