Education
Park graduated from Keio University in 1981.
朴裕河
Park graduated from Keio University in 1981.
Her research focuses on Japanese-Korean relations. Her 2013 book Comfort Women of the Empire criticized the Korean interpretation of comfort women as exclusively "sex slaves." A Japanese language version of the book was published in Japan in November 2014. A group of former comfort women sought to ban sales of the book, claiming that it depicted them as prostitutes and collaborators with Japan.
In November 2015, a group of 54 scholars from Japan and the United States, issued a statement criticizing South Korean prosecutors for “suppressing the freedom of scholarship and press” She earned an Master of Arts from Waseda University in 1989 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1993.
In her book Comfort Women of the Empire, Park challenges the established narrative of Imperial Japan"s military brothel system. She writes that there is no evidence that the Japanese Government was officially involved in coercing Korean women.
Rather, she writes that it was Korean and Japanese private brokers who forced or lured women into the "comfort stations", where life included both rape and prostitution. These revelations reflect Park"s approach in analyzing history as it happened as opposed to how certain groups wanted it to happen, "while maintaining the dignity of those who suffered.".