Women’s Voices: War, Memory, and the Pursuit of Peace

Name: Women’s Voices: War, Memory, and the Pursuit of Peace
Start: 2026-03-07T13:30:00+11:00
End: 2026-03-07T13:30:00+11:00
Location: RMIT Building 80, Room 80.02.002

About

Join us in an International Women's Day Forum - Women’s Voices: War, Memory, and the Pursuit of Peace.

The forum brings together historians, authors, scholars, and community advocates to explore how women experience war, how violence and injustice are remembered, denied, or silenced, and why truthful remembrance is essential to dignity, justice, and peace.

Date: Saturday 7 March 2026, 1:30PM for 2:00PM-4:00PM
Venue: RMIT Building 80, Room 80.02.002. 445 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000.

Co-hosted by:
* Alliance for Peace and Memory
* Chinese Asutralians for Peace Association
* Friends of "Comfort Women" in Melbourne
* Chinese Australian Studies Forum at RMIT

Speakers:

* Professor Yuki Tanaka
Historian
Professor Yuki Tanaka is a historian whose work focuses on war, violence, and historical responsibility in the Asia–Pacific region. A former Research Professor at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, he has written extensively on war crimes, civilian suffering, and wartime sexual violence, including influential studies on the Japanese military “comfort women” system and the politics of historical memory and accountability.

* Georgina Banks
Author, Back to Bangka: Searching for the Truth about a Wartime Massacre
Georgina Banks is the author of Back to Bangka, a non fiction work that investigates the 1942 Bangka Island massacre of Australian Army nurses through family history, archival research, and personal reflection. Published in 2023, the book explores silence, intergenerational memory, and the long search for truth surrounding women’s experiences of wartime violence.

* Professor Gil Soo Han
Scholar of Media, Culture, and Historical Memory
Professor Gil Soo Han is a Professor at Monash University whose research examines media, nationalism, and historical memory, particularly in East Asia. His work explores how histories of conflict and injustice are represented and contested in public discourse, and how collective memory shapes dignity, reconciliation, and peace.

* Christine Kim
President, Alliance for Peace and Memory; Secretary, Friends of “Comfort Women” in Melbourne
Christine Kim is the Secretary of Friends of “Comfort Women” in Melbourne, a community organisation dedicated to remembrance, education, and advocacy for justice for women subjected to sexual violence during war. Her advocacy work centres on survivor dignity, intergenerational memory, and the role of public remembrance in promoting human rights and peace.