The State We're In, 27 February 2010. Yi Okseon was forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army. She’s still waiting for an official apology. In Colombia, Annie Correal’s father was kidnapped by insurgents. A radio station helped her family to send messages to him, messages that he says kept him alive.
 
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Photo: A Colombian student, with chained hands, participates in a protest against kidnapping and asks the audience not to forget those who aren't on the exchange lists as hundreds of kidnap victims are held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC.
 
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Still waiting - part 1
Yi Okseon is now in her 80s and lives in Seoul, Korea. But when she was fifteen, she was kidnapped by the Japanese army and sent to China to become a sex slave, or “comfort woman”. She tells Jonathan why she still wants a proper apology and what it would mean to her.

Still waiting - part 2
Yi Okseon tells Jonathan how she endured three years as a “comfort woman”, sometimes servicing over fifty men a day: what kept her alive was picturing herself one day telling her story publicly.

Fighting to make history
In 2007, Japanese historian Hirofumi Hayashi uncovered official documents confirming that the Japanese government was directly involved in forcing women across Asia into sexual slavery. Until then, the government consistently denied responsibility. But political pressure has all but eclipsed the strides he and a handful of others have made in getting the story told.

Kidnap radio - part 1
Annie Correal’s father was kidnapped in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.  She recounts how a radio show in Colombia, Voces del Secuestro or Voices of the Kidnapped, helped her send messages to her father, messages that he says kept him alive.

Kidnap radio - part 2
Annie Correal’s father, Jaime, recalls how hearing his family’s voices on the radio kept him alive through his ordeal. Annie speaks with other people who were able to talk to their kidnapped loved ones through Voces del Secuestro.
 
Links: Voces del Secuestro and Transom websites

Lead photo credit: EPA/CARLOS ORTEGA