Comfort women (慰安婦, ianfu) or military comfort women (従軍慰安婦, jūgun-ianfu) is a euphemism for women involved in prostitution and sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels during World War II, a proportion of whom were forced or coerced.^[1][2] Between 50,000 - 200,000 are estimated to have been procured, but there is still some disagreement about exact numbers. The majority were from Japan, Korea and China but women from the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, the Dutch East Indies, Indonesia, and other Japanese-occupied territories were also used in "comfort stations". Stations were located in Japan, China, the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, New Guinea, Hong Kong, Macau and French Indochina.^[3]

Young women from Japan and countries under Japanese imperial rule became comfort women by a number of different manners; voluntarily or via already existing sex industries, abducted against their will or recruited with offers to general work and subsequently forced or engaged in providing sexual services.^[4][5] The matter is still being actively debated, especially in South East Asian where it has political value for a number of different parties ^[6] the issue being focued on the nature of the Japanese government apologies to surviving sex slaves.

Already dating back to the pre-WWII era, military brothels were run by both local and colonical private agents and the system supervised by the Japanese Military and government throughout Japan's Asian colonies and occupied territories.^[4]

Establishment of the Comfort Women System

Japanese military prostitution

Given the well-organized and open nature of prostitution in Japan, it was seen as logical that there should be organized prostitution to serve the Japanese Armed Forces.^[7] Japanese authorities hoped that by providing easily accessible prostitutes, the morale and ultimately the military effectiveness of Japanese soldiers would be improved. By institutionalizing brothels and placing them under official scrutiny, the government hoped to control the spread of STDs, prevent rape crimes and thus preventing rise of hostility among people in occupied areas ^[8] and reduce vulnerability to enemy female spies. ^[4]

Recruitment

Into the early stages of the war, Japanese authorities continued to recruite prostitutes through conventional means. Local and colonical agents advertised in newspapers circulating in Japan and the Japanese colonies of Korea, Taiwan, Manchukuo, and mainland China. However these sources, especially in Japan, soon dried up.^[4][7]

The public archives of the Tokyo Trials suggest that Imperial military forces forced women whose fathers attacked the Kempei Tai (Japanese military police), to work in front line brothels in China, Indochina and Indonesia. ^[4] In one of these, a lieutenant is quoted as confessing to having organized a brothel and used it himself. Another source refers to Tokeitai members having arrested women on the streets, and after enforced medical examinations, putting them in brothels.^[9] A further 30 Dutch government documents, submitted as evidence of a forced massed prostitution incident in 1944 in Magelang, were reported on 12 May 2007 by Taichiro Kaijimura.^[10]

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs resisted further issuance of travel visas for Japanese prostitutes, feeling it tarnished the image of the Japanese Empire and took action against agents using disreputable means^[4][7] The military turned to acquiring comfort women outside mainland Japan, especially from Korea and occupied China.^[11] In urban areas, conventional advertising through the Korean "Zegen" ^[12] and Chinese middlemen were used, for example the South Korean government designated Bae Jeong-ja as pro-Japan collaborator (chinilpa) in September 2007 for his role in recruitment^[13][14], alongside kidnapping. Along the front lines, the military often directly demanded that local leaders procure women for the brothels.

The situation became worse as the war progressed.^{[citation needed]} When the locals were considered hostile, Japanese soldiers carried out the "Three Alls Policy", which included indiscriminately kidnapping and raping local civilians.^[15][16][17]

Conditions

Women were often induced by the offer of plenty of money and an opportunity to pay off the family debts. On the basis of this, many girls enlisted for overseas duty, were rewarded with advance of a few hundred yen. In an average month a girl would gross about fifteen hundred yen turning over 50% to the "master". Many "masters" made life very difficult for the girls by charging them high prices for food and other articles. In the latter part of 1943 the Army issued orders that certain girls who had paid their debt could return home. Some of the girls were thus allowed to return to Korea.

Mostly comfort women and soliders were generally supplied with all types of contraceptives by the army. They were well trained in looking after both themselves and customers in the matter of hygiene. A regular Japanese Army doctor visited the houses once a week and any girl found diseased was given treatment, secluded, and eventually sent to a hospital. ^[18]

In urban areas, conventional advertising through middlemen was used alongside kidnapping. However, along the front lines, especially in the countryside where middlemen were rare, the military often directly demanded that local leaders procure women for the brothels. This situation became worse as the war progressed.^{[citation needed]} Moreover, when the locals, especially Chinese, were considered hostile, Japanese soldiers carried out the "Three Alls Policy", which included indiscriminately kidnapping and raping local civilians.^[19][20][21]

South Korean government designated Bae Jeong-ja as pro-Japan collaborator (chinilpa) in September 2007 for recruiting comfort women.^[22][23]

Number of comfort women

Lack of official documentation has made estimates of the total number of comfort women difficult, as vast amounts of material pertaining to matters related to war crimes and the war responsibility of the nation's highest leaders were deleted on the orders of the Japanese government.^[4]

Estimates from surviving documentation indicate the ratio of the number of soldiers in a particular area to the number of women, as well as looking at replacement rates of the women.^[24] Historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi, who conducted the first academic study on the topic which brought the issue out into the open, estimated the number to be between 50,000 and 200,000.^[8]

Based on these and estimates from the International Commission of Jurists, international media sources tend to quote between 100,000 to 300,000 women were involved. ^[25]

Country of origin

Professor Yoshiaki Yoshimi states there were about 2,000 centers where as many as 200,000 Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Taiwanese, Burmese, Indonesian, Dutch and Australian women were interned with 40% Japanese, 20% Koreans, 10% Chinese, with others making up the remaining 30%. ^{[4] [26] [27][26]}

Treatment of comfort women

The treatment of comfort women waried. According to Unit 731 soldier Yasuji Kaneko^[28] "The women cried out, but it didn't matter to us whether the women lived or died. We were the emperor's soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance."^[29] Beatings and physical torture were said to be not uncommon.^[30]

Ten Dutch women were taken by force from prison camps in Java by officers of the Japanese Imperial Army to become forced sex slaves in February 1944. They were systematically beaten and raped day and night in a so called "Comfort Station".^[30] They were returned to the prison camps within three months upon protest of the Dutch prisoners against the Imperial Army, the Japanese officers were declared guilty and punished ^[31] after the end of the WWII, one being sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court having been decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army.^[31] Original documents exist giving instructions not to treat comfort women violently, ^[32], however many victims from testified against this.^[33]

Hank Nelson, emeritus professor at the Australian National University’s Asia Pacific Research Division has written about the brothels run by the Japanese military in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea during WWII. He quotes from the diary of Gordon Thomas, a POW in Rabaul. Thomas writes that the women working at the brothels “most likely served 25 to 35 men a day” and that they were “victims of the yellow slave trade.”^[34]

Nelson also quotes from Kentaro Igusa, a Japanese naval surgeon who was stationed in Rabaul. Igusa wrote in his memoirs that the women continued to work through infection and severe discomfort.^[34] Many were given forced abortions. ^[4]

History of the controversy

Disputed testimony of an ex-soldier

In 1983, Seiji Yoshida published Watashino sensō hanzai - Chōsenjin Kyōsei Renkō (My War Crimes: The Impressment of Koreans), in which the author confesses to forcibly procuring women from Jeju Island in Korea under the direct order from the Japanese military. In 1991, Asahi Shimbun, one of the major newspapers of Japan, ran a series on comfort women for a year repeatedly published excerpts of the book acting as the trigger for the on-going controversy over comfort women in Japan. It was regarded as evidence of "forced comfort women" and cited in the U.N. report by Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy.

Yoshida's "confession" was doubted by some because he was alone in admitting to such crimes. When Prof. Ikuhiko Hata revisited the villages in South Korea where Yoshida claimed he had abducted many women, nobody confirmed Yoshida's confession and the situation was contradictory to his confession. When Hata questioned Yoshida on this matter, the latter admitted that he had taken artistic licence in respect to the places mentioned.^{[citation needed]}

Initial government response and litigation

Initially the Japanese government denied any official connection to the wartime brothels declaring that all brothels were run by private contractors.

In 1990, the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery filed suit, demanding compensation. Several surviving comfort women also independently filed suit in the Tokyo District Court. The court rejected these claims on grounds such as statute of limitations, the immunity of the State at the time of the act concerned, and non-subjectivity of the individual of international law.^[35]

Kono statement

In 1991, Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered incriminating documents in the archives of the Defense Agency which indicated that the military was directly involved in running the brothels by selecting the recruiting agents.^[4] These were published in the Asahi Shimbun as a front-page article on 11 January 1992 causing a sensation and forcing the government, represented by Chief Cabinet Secretary, Koichi Kato, to acknowledge the facts. On January 17 1992, Prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa presented formal apologies for the suffering of the victims during a trip to South Korea.

After some government studies into the matter, Yohei Kono, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, issued an official Japanese government statement on 4 August 1993 recognizing that, "comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military of the day" and that, "the Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of the women". It went on to say, "The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted in response to the request of the military. The Government study has revealed that in many cases they were recruited against their own will through coaxing and coercion". The Government of Japan "sincerely apologize[d] and [expressed its] remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable psychological wounds" and expressed its "firm determination never to repeat the same mistake" and engraving such issues through the study and teaching of history".^[27]

The statement admitted an unspecified role in the military brothel system, yet did not include the admittance of a legal responsibility for them.

Asia Women's Fund

In 1995, the "Asia Women's Fund" for atonement in the form of material compensation and to provide each surviving comfort woman with a signed apology from the then prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, stating "As Prime Minister of Japan, I thus extend anew my most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women."^[36] The fund is funded by private donations and not government money, and has been criticized as a way to avoid admitting government abuse.^[37][29] Because of the unofficial nature of the fund, many comfort women have rejected these payments and continue to seek an official compensation.^[38]

United Nations Human Rights Commission

On June 22 1998, Gay J. McDougall, Special Rapporteur to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, released Contemporary Forms of Slavery^[39], a report based on prior UN investigation by Linda Chavez documenting systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices in wartime in general but which was mainly aimed at bringing wider attention to the deep harm to human rights caused by Japan during World War II. The report detailed the official Japanese government stance as well as the UN's own legal position. MacDougall was awarded a MacArthur Fellows Program "genius" grant the year after her analysis.

Guilt and liability

The 1998 UN report listed their findings regarding Japan's guilt and liability:

• The system of comfort women used by the Japanese government during WWII falls under the international definition of slavery at the time, and slavery (sexual or otherwise) was illegal at the time. The 1926 Slavery Convention embodies one such definition. International prohibition of slavery was included in the Tokyo Charter which was used to make the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
• Rape (including forced or coerced prostitution) was a war crime at the time; regardless of whether prostitution was widespread during World War II. Arguments that the comfort women system was perfectly legal at the time is similar to an argument that was used and refuted at the Nuremberg Trials.
• Enslavement and other inhumane acts committed can be considered “crimes against humanity”, the nationality of the victim is irrelevant.
• The Japanese government is liable for crimes against humanity because of the considerable scale on which these crimes were committed. ^[39]

Official position of the Japanese government

The 1998 UN report stated their understanding of Japan's legal position regarding compensation:

"Until the early 1990s, the Japanese government denied the extent of its involvement in the creation of comfort stations and the abuses committed against women (comfort women). The Japanese government has made various apologies since the early 1990s. One very notable apology was made by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in July 1995 in which he specifically mentions the Japanese military’s involvement in crimes against comfort women. Though it has seemingly apologized repeatedly for these offenses, the Japanese government denies legal liability for the creation and maintenance of the system of “comfort stations” and comfort women used during World War II. The Japanese government has set up an Asia Women’s Fund which conveys Japan’s apologies for crimes committed against women during World War II through direct donations from the Japanese public. Despite this, according to the Japanese government, individual comfort women don’t deserve compensation."^[39]

Abe controversy

On 2 March 2007, the issue was raised again by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, when he denied that the Japanese military had forced women into sexual slavery during World War II in an orchestrated way. He stated, "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion" questioning what "constitutes the definition of coercion". Before he spoke, a group of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers also sought to revise Yohei Kono's 1993 apology to former comfort women.^{[dead link] [40][37]} Abe's statement provoked a negative reaction from Asian and Western countries. The New York Times editorial said, "These were not commercial brothels. Force, explicit and implicit, was used in recruiting these women." On 26 March 2007 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his regrets for the violations of human rights with regard to comfort women.^{[citation needed]} According to Kyodo news, Abe's step back and announcement that he should stand after all to Yohei Kono's 1993 statement was made after firm warning by U.S. ambassador Thomas Schieffer. ^[41]

Following Abe's declarations, former education minister Nariaki Nakayama declared he was proud that the Liberal Democratic Party had succeeded in getting references to "wartime sex slaves" struck from most authorized history texts for junior high schools. "Our campaign worked, and people outside government also started raising their voices." ^[42], He also declared that he agreed with an e-mail sent to him saying that the "victimized women in Asia should be proud of being comfort women".^[43]

The use of the term

Taiwan's English-language newspaper Taipei Times says that the first exposure of the use of Korean comfort women can be found in Japanese writer Tamura Taijiro's 1947 novel A Prostitute's Story.^[44]

Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun stated that commfort women were not treated as "paramilitary personnel", unlike military nurses.^[45][46] The article says, during the war, Comfort women were not called military comfort women (従軍慰安婦, jūgun-ianfu).^[45][46] and the use of the term spread in the post-war time.^[45][46] Also stated that the term military comfort women is said to have been used by Japanese writer Kakō Senda (1924-2000) in his book titled Jūgun Ianfu (military comfort women ) published in 1973.^[45][46]

Senda’s book became a best seller.^[47] Thereafter, the usage of jugun ianfu prevailed,^[46] and the term jugun ianfu (comfort women serving in the war), would later become contentious, came to have a wide circulation. ^[47]

U.S. Congressional resolution

In 2007, Mike Honda of the United States House of Representatives proposed House Resolution 121 which stated that Japan should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner, refute any claims that the issue of comfort women never occurred, and educate current and future generations "about this horrible crime while following the recommendations of the international community with respect to the 'comfort women'."^[48] Honda has stated that "the purpose of this resolution is not to bash or humiliate Japan."^[49] A victim of the incident, Jan Ruff-O'Hearn testified to a U.S. House of Representatives committee. ^[30]

On July 30, 2007, the resolution passed through the House of Representatives after half an hour of debate in which there was no opposition voiced.^[50] Honda was quoted on the floor as saying, "We must teach future generations that we cannot allow this to continue to happen. I have always believed that reconciliation is the first step in the healing process."^[50] The Japanese embassy replied that the resolution was erroneous in terms of the facts and that it would be harmful to the friendship between the US and Japan.^[51]

Dutch Parliament resolution

The lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a motion initiated by Dutch MP Hans van Baalen unanimously on November 20,2007, requesting the Japanese government to "refrain from any declaration that will devalue the 1993 declaration of remorse and to take full responsibility for the involvement of the Japanese army in operating the system of coerced prostitution, to make an additional gesture by offering the presently living Comfort Women a form of direct, moral and financial compensation for the inflicted suffering and promote that all the teaching material on Japanese schools give an accurate picture of the Japanese role in the Second World War, including the fate of the Comfort Women". ^[52]

Canadian Lower House resolution

Canada's lower house unanimously approved a draft motion on November 28, 2007 that urges the Japanese government to make a "formal and sincere apology" to women who were forced by the Japanese military to provide sex for soldiers during World War II. The text of the motion said the Canadian government should call on the Japanese government "to take full responsibility for the involvement of the Japanese Imperial Forces in the system of forced prostitution, including through a formal and sincere apology expressed in the Diet to all of those who were victims; and to continue to address with those affected in a spirit of reconciliation."

It also said, "Some Japanese public officials have recently expressed a regrettable desire to dilute or rescind the 1993 statement by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the 'comfort women,' which expressed the (Japanese) Government's sincere apologies and remorse for their ordeal."

The motion, though nonbinding, also said the Canadian government should call on Japan to abandon any statement which devalues the expression of regret from the Kono statement and to clearly and publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the "comfort women" for the Imperial Japanese Army never occurred.^[53][54]

European Parliament resolution

Following a campaign by Amnesty International to press the EU on making a statement about the issue, on 13 December 2007 the European Parliament in Strasbourg passed a resolution calling for the Japanese government to formally acknowledge its historical responsibility over the Comfort Women issue, as well as apologize and compensate victims.

The motion was submitted by Jean Lambert, a Green member of the European Parliament, and was voted through by 54 Member of the European Parliament's. The resolution, while acknowledging past statements by the Japanese government, noted that "some Japanese officials have recently expressed a regrettable desire to dilute or rescind those statements" and called for the Japanese government to "formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical and legal responsibility, in a clear and unequivocal manner". The resolution also called for the Japanese government to remove legal obstacles to compensation for the victims, and to take steps to educate people about these events. ^{[55] [56][57][58]}

Revisionists

The main opposition to the mainstream ideas about comfort women is perhaps the view held by Ikuhiko Hata and other revisionist historians. They question the credibility of certain evidence used to prove the existence and scope of various war crimes committed by Japan including the abuse of comfort women. These Japanese historians argued that there is no evidence to prove the Japanese military's direct involvement in coercion of the women. In their view, there was violent treatment of comfort women by private agents, which would make the Japanese Military only responsible for insufficient supervision. A comic book, On Taiwan by Japanese author Yoshinori Kobayashi, depicts kimono-clad women lining up to sign up for duty before a Japanese soldier. Kobayashi's book contains an interview with Taiwanese industrialist Shi Wen-long who stated that no women were forced to serve, and that they worked in more hygienic conditions compared to regular prostitutes because the use of condoms was mandatory.^[59].

Hata estimates the number of comfort women to be more likely between 10,000 and 20,000 (in contrast to 60,000 to 300,000 estimated by other historians).^[8] Hata writes that none of the comfort women were forcibly recruited.^[60] The proportion of countries of origin of the women is also in dispute and the credibility of testimony given by former comfort women has been seen as inconsistent and unreliable therefor making it invalid.^[61]

Groups in Japan have protested against the ideas about comfort women being broadcast in mass media. This resulted in the NHK controversy in early 2001. The coverage of the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery was edited and an interview with Hata was inserted at the last minute to appease the right-wing groups that complained to NHK.^[62]

See also

• List of war crimes
• Japanese war crimes
• List of War Apology Statements Issued by Japan
• Anti-Japanese sentiment
  • Anti-Japanese sentiment in China
  • Anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea
• Trafficking in human beings
• Joy Division (World War II)
• Recreation and Amusement Association
• Historical revisionism (negationism)
• United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121
• Rosa Henson, a Filipina who told her story as a comfort woman
• Sexual enslavement by Nazi Germany in WWII

References

Footnotes

Print media

Some recent work on the comfort women issue include:

• Barbara Drinck, Chung-noh Gross Forced Prostitution in Times of War and Peace, Kleine Verlag, 2007. ISBN-13: 978-3-89370-436-1.
• Yoshimi, Yoshiaki Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, Columbia University Press, 2001. (mentioned RAA too) ISBN 0-231-12032-X.
• Molasky, Michael S. American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa, Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-19194-7, ISBN 0-415-26044-2.
• D. Kim-Gibson, Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women, 1999. ISBN 0-931209-88-9.
• Schellstede, Sangmie Choi. Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military, 2000. ISBN 0-8419-1413-3.

A review of the Tanaka text can be found in the academic journal Intersections, Issue 9:

• Morris, Narrelle. Review of Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation.

A review of some of these books and a history and historiography of the issue, from a critical viewpoint, can be found in issue 58:2 of Monumenta Nipponica:

• Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashii "Comfort Women: Beyond Litigious Feminism"

A work of literature on the issue was created by Korean American writer Nora Okja Keller:

• Nora Okja Keller "Comfort Woman", London, Penguin: 1998. ISBN 0-14-026335-7.

A Filipina woman writes of her experiences as a comfort woman for Japanese troops

• Maria Rosa Henson "Comfort woman: Slave of destiny", Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism: 1996. ISBN 9718686118.

Web

• Asian Women's Fund web site
• Comfort-Women.org
• Korea Dutch Indies Sex Slavery Translation Project
• 121 Coalition
• "The Victims" (from the South Korean Ministry of Gender and Family Equality)
• Japanese Military Sex Slaves{{citation broken|date=2008-05-31}, CBS Report featuring Mike Honda and Nariaki Nakayama's infamous comment comparing "comfort houses"} and cafeterias
• Japan forced women to work as sex slaves during World War II
• Photo gallery at the Seoul Times.
• A Public Betrayed - How the Japanese Media Betrays its Own People
• "Comfort Women" (Web page). Australian War Memorial. 2006. Retrieved 2008-01-06. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |coauthors=, and |month= (help) - describes the experience of Jan O’Herne in Java
• Coop, Stephanie (December 23, 2006). "Sex slave exhibition exposes darkness in East Timor" (Newspaper article). The Japan Times. Retrieved 2006-12-23. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear=, |coauthors=, and |month= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Nakamura, Akemi (March 20, 2007). "Comfort Women: Were they teen-rape slaves or paid pros?". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2006-03-23. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |accessyear= and |month= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Friends of “Comfort Women” Australia (FCWA) - not-for-profit organisation focusing on the plight of the Japanese military “Comfort Women” of World War II.
• Mourning, song about comfort women composed by Mu Ting Zhang and directed by Po En Lee

Academic research

• The Comfort Women project
• Hayashi Hirofumi's papers on comfort women
• Responsibility Toward Comfort Women Survivors: Japan Policy Research Institute Working Paper 77.
• Japan's Comfort Women, Theirs and Ours: Book review, Japan Policy Research Institute Critique 9:2.
• Journal of Asian American Studies 6:1, Feb 2003, issue on American studies of comfort women, Kandice Chuh, ed.
• No Organized or Forced Recruitment: Misconceptions about Comfort Women and the Japanese Military: Critical study on comfort women problem.

Japanese official statements

• Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the occasion of the establishment of the "Asian Women's Fund" (1995, Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• Letter from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the former comfort women (2001, Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

United States historical documents

• House Concurrent Resolution 226 (June 23, 2003, 108th United States Congress), introduced by Rep. Lane Evans (Illinois 17), referred to House Committee on International Relations; not passed.
• Japanese Comfort Women (1944, United States Office of War Information)

Template:Link FA