Matsui, Yayori (1934–2002)

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Matsui, Yayori (1934–2002)

Japanese journalist and activist. Born April 12, 1934, in Kyoto, Japan; died Dec 27, 2002, in Tokyo; dau. of Chinese Christian missionaries; attended college in Minnesota and Paris.

Joined the newspaper staff of Asahi Shimbun (1961), pursuing, among other stories, Japan's use of thalidomide; after being posted by Asahi in Singapore (1981), fought for greater Japanese disclosure of its sexual enslavement of Asian women during WWII; returned to Japan (1985); retired from Asahi (1994); as an activist, founded Asian Women in Solidarity (1976), Tokyo's Asia-Japan Women's Resource Center (1995), Violence Against Women in War-Network, Japan (1998), which was the principal sponsor of the Women's International War Crimes Trial (2000), and the Women's Museum (2006), an archive documenting the violence against women during conflicts throughout the world. Author of Women in New Asia: From Pain to Power (St. Martin's, 2000).