On UN International Eliminate Sexual Violence in Conflict Day, SOAS Korean Social and Environmental Justice Society will have a special film event celebrating Jan Ruff O’Herne, a survivor of Japanese military sexual slavery, and human rights campaigner.
Jan was inspired in 1991 by the Korean grandmothers to tell her story – and to tell her family – and wrote a deeply moving book, ’50 Years of Silence’. The evening will present the documentary film of ’50 Years of Silence’
‘Daily Bread’ is an award winning short film depicting one story from Jan’s book. The filmmaker and lead actor Ruby Challenger is Jan’s granddaughter.
Daily Bread + 50 Years of Silence
Wednesday 19 June 2019, 6:45pm
Senate House room 315 (not SOAS main building)
Facebook event page
Join us for what will be an inspirational evening to celebrate this remarkable woman, and remember all victims of military sexual violence. Please invite friends and share the event page.
Daily Bread
(Australia 2018, 15 mins, Dutch & Japanese with English subtitles. Historical drama)
Director: Ruby ChallengerDaily Bread dramatizes an episode from the filmmaker’s grandmother Jan Ruff O’Herne’s book, ’50 Years of Silence’. Jan is a Dutch prisoner of war in Japanese controlled Indonesia. She decides to help a starving child, with disastrous consequences for the whole camp.
50 Years of Silence
(Australia 1994, 57 mins, English. Documentary)
Director: Ned Lander50 Years of Silence documents the incredible story of Jan Ruff O’Herne, one of an estimated 200,000 women and girls forced into Japanese military sexual slavery across Asia in WW2, euphemistically called ‘comfort women’. When elderly Korean survivors spoke out about their experiences in 1992 they began the original ‘Me Too’ movement. Jan, now settled in Australia, knew it was time to tell the world, and her own family.
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