Fighting for Freedom

Journalist, filmmaker and philanthropist Sylvia Yu Friedman has dedicated her life to fighting for the rights of women and girls as an antislavery campaigner. With the release of a new book—and a new role—she hopes to share what she has learnt with other Asian women

By Rachel Duffell

FRONT & FEMALE Sylvia Yu Friedman was 16 years old when she found her calling in life. “I didn’t realise that it was something that I would immerse myself in for decades to come,” she recalls. But when she learnt the story of a Japanese comfort woman whose life was destroyed by sexual enslavement in a military war zone, she says it “sparked the fire in my belly”. On August 14, 1991, 68-year-old Kim Hak-soon chose to break her silence at a press conference in Seoul, sharing how, 50 years previously, she had been forced into sex slavery during the Japanese war against China. She recounted being raped up to 30 times a day by Japanese soldiers. Kim was one of what has been estimated to be as many as…

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Tatler Hong Kong (Digital) - 1 Issue, December 2024

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