Kang Duk-kyung (1929–1997) was a Korean comfort woman in the Japanese colonial era during World War II.
[3] She was a 14-year-old student at Yoshino School when one of her male Japanese teachers advised her to enter the Hujikosi airplane factory to work.
Kang Duk-kyung stated, “One hundred fifty people got on a ferryboat in Busan because their Japanese teachers said it was a good opportunity to earn money.”[4] She eventually left the Hujikosi airplane factory in 1944 when she experienced hard working conditions and faced hunger.
Like the other survivor-residents, Kang Duk-kyung was upset that the Japanese government and military denied their involvement with the torture that she and others had endured during their time as ‘comfort women.’[8] She committed to advocating and bringing awareness to the issue of sexual slavery and the lives of other ‘comfort women.’ She protested and raised awareness with many broadcast and media interviews.
She became one of the movement's most outspoken members, testifying at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and at an assembly in Japan at the invitation of a Japanese civic group.
Kang Duk-kyung's overall health was failing and she often had to shuffle between being in the intensive care unit and a general ward.
In 1996, in the later stage of her cancer battle, Kang Duk-kyung attended the Wednesday demonstration in a hospital ambulance.
[2] Thirty of her artworks, including Stolen Innocence, were put on display in the exhibition hall at the House of Sharing.