Yes, in many countries in Asia. There are Thai women's groups and feminist groups campaigning. "Thai Friends of Women" has begun working for Thai migrant women going to Japan to work in the sex industry. From this organization a new group "Friends of Thai migrant women in Asia" is going to be formed in 1991. Our group, the Asian Women's Association, has a fund to work together with them, and to make Japanese women aware.
As far as Thai women sent to Europe are concerned, the Thai Women's Foundation is doing support work. "Empower" is another committed group, organizing the bar girls in Patpong, the international-
In the Philippines, the national women's group Gabriela has a project on prosprostitution bill was proposed in the congress by the female vice-president of the major opposition party. In Chejudo Island, am international tourist resort heavily trafficked by Japanese men, after investigating the kisang tours, young women formed the group "Women and Democracy" and succeeded in closing a notorious kisaeng house.
In Taiwan, the Rainbow Project was started to protect especially young girls from the mountain tribes from the cruel treatment they receive in the city brothels. This is the underside hardly seen in this shining example of a successful economy — an economy that victimizes the • In what Asian countries is the women's movement strongest?
First India, because politically they have more freedom than other countries. And their religious traditions of Hindu and Islam, which are very oppressive to women, combined with the severe poverty of the poor rural and ordinary women,
have brought out such a large number of women's groups, so many you cannot count them, with their own network and strong magazines. The variety, creativity, and power of these women's movements are really overwhelming. The next, perhaps, would be the Philippines. The women's movements are closely connected to the national struggle. The large coalition of women's groups, Gabriela, is made up of over 100 groups, women workers, farmers, urban poor, intellectuals.
I would also comment on the strength of the women in South Korea. The long struggle under the dictatorship brought out so many women who risked their lives, so now they continue to fight and are not afraid of going to jail.
Japanese women have much to leam from other Asian women's movements. Still many Japanese look down on their Asian sisters, and maybe they have "pity" for them. From the Asian women's point of view, Japanese women look oppressed and manipulated. They wonder why Japanese women don't get angry. It is not Japanese women but other Asian