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Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2.

Comfort stations gained infamy following the publication of a novel depicting kidnappings and incarceration of girls into comfort stations by Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, which, at the time, was thought to be based on real events. This was followed by 16 testimonies by former comfort women concerning poor treatment as well as deceptive and coercive recruitment practices. These revelations incited international outrage, with many likening the brothels to institutions of sexual slavery, although recently this notion has been challenged by researchers in Korea, Japan and the US, whose findings indicate that many comfort women were legally contracted for the job and well-remunerated compared to non-military prostitutes. The name "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese ianfu (慰安婦), a euphemism for "prostitute(s)".

Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with numbers ranging from as low as 20,000 (by Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata) to as high as 360,000 to 410,000 (by Chinese scholar Hua-Lun Huang); the exact numbers are still being researched and debated. Most of the women were from occupied countries, including Korea, China, and the Philippines. Women who were used for military "comfort stations" also came from Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaya, Manchukuo, Taiwan (then a Japanese dependency), the Dutch East Indies, Portuguese Timor, New Guinea and other Japanese-occupied territories. Stations were located in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, then Malaya, Thailand, Burma, New Guinea, Hong Kong, Macau, and French Indochina. A smaller number of women of European origin were also involved from the Netherlands and Australia with an estimated 200–400 Dutch women alone.

Originally, the brothels were established to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease and to reduce the incidence of wartime rape, a cause of rising anti-Japanese sentiment across occupied territories. However, many women ended up being forced to work in the brothels against their own will. According to testimonies, some young women were abducted from their homes in countries under Imperial Japanese rule. In many cases, local middlemen tasked with procuring prostitutes for the military lured women with promises of work in factories or restaurants. In some cases propaganda advocated equity and the sponsorship of women in higher education. Other enticements were false advertising for nursing jobs at outposts or Japanese army bases; once recruited, they were incarcerated in comfort stations both inside their nations and abroad.

Outline of the comfort women system

Establishment by Japanese military

Prostitution in Japan was well-organized, and the Japanese government and military developed a similar program to provide sexual services to Japanese Armed Forces. Military correspondence within the Imperial Japanese Army shows that there were a number of the aims for facilitating comfort stations: to reduce or prevent rape crimes by Japanese army personnel in an effort to prevent a worsening of anti-Japanese sentiment, to reduce venereal diseases among Japanese troops, and to prevent leakage of military secrets by civilians who were in contact with Japanese officers. Carmen Argibay, a former member of the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice, states that the Japanese government aimed to prevent atrocities like the Rape of Nanking by confining rape and sexual abuse to military-controlled facilities, or stop incidents from leaking to the international press should they occur. She also states that the government wanted to minimize medical expenses on treating venereal diseases that the soldiers acquired from frequent and widespread rape, which hindered Japan's military capacity. Furthermore, Yuki Tanaka suggests that local brothels outside of the military's reach had issues of security since there were possibilities of spies disguised as workers of such private facilities. Japanese historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi further states that the Japanese military used comfort women to satisfy disgruntled soldiers during World War II and prevent military revolt. He also asserts that, despite the goal of reducing rape and venereal disease, the comfort stations did the opposite—aggravating rape and increasing the spread of venereal disease.

Outline

In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Japan's military closely regulated privately-operated brothels in Manchuria.

The first comfort station was established in the Japanese concession in Shanghai in 1932. Earlier comfort women were Japanese prostitutes who volunteered for such service. However, as Japan continued military expansion, the military found itself short of Japanese volunteers, and turned to local populations - abducting or coercing women into serving in the comfort stations. Many women responded to calls to work as factory workers or nurses, and did not know that they were being pressed into sexual slavery.

In the early stages of the war, Japanese authorities recruited prostitutes through conventional means. In urban areas, conventional advertising through middlemen was used alongside kidnapping. Middlemen advertised in newspapers circulating in Japan and in the Japanese colonies of Korea, Taiwan, Manchukuo, and China. These sources soon dried up, especially in metropolitan Japan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs resisted further issuance of travel visas for Japanese prostitutes, feeling it tarnished the image of the Japanese Empire. The military turned to acquiring comfort women outside mainland Japan, mostly from Korea and from occupied China. An existing system of licensed prostitution within Korea made it easy for Japan to recruit females in large numbers.

Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels. Based on false characterizations and payments - by Japanese or by local recruitment agents - which could help relieve family debts, many Korean girls enlisted to take the job. Furthermore, the South East Asia Translation and Interrogation Center (SEATIC) Psychological Warfare Interrogation Bulletin No.2 states that a Japanese facility-manager purchased Korean women for 300 to 1000 yen depending on their physical characteristics, who then became his property and were not released even after completing the servitude terms specified in the contract. In northern Hebei province of China Hui Muslim girls were recruited to "Huimin Girls' school" to be trained as entertainers, but then forced to serve as sex slaves. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that a major issue that no historian has examined whether the soldiers of the Indian National Army had used comfort women, there had been no investigation for it. Lebra wrote "None of those have written on Bose's Indian national army has investigated whether, while trained by the Japanese army, they were permitted to share in the 'comfort' provided by thousands of kidnapped Korean young women held as sex slaves by the Imperial Japanese Army at its camps. This might have provided them with some insight into the nature of Japanese, as opposed to British, colonial rule, as well what might be in store for their sisters and daughters."

Under the strain of the war effort, the military became unable to provide enough supplies to Japanese units; in response, the units made up the difference by demanding or looting supplies from the locals. The military often directly demanded that local leaders procure women for the brothels along the front lines, especially in the countryside where middlemen were rare. When the locals were considered hostile in China, Japanese soldiers carried out the "Three Alls Policy" ("kill all, burn all, loot all") which included indiscriminately kidnapping and raping local civilians.

Later archives

On April 17, 2007, Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi announced the discovery of seven official documents in the archives of the Tokyo Trials, suggesting that Imperial military forces – such as the Tokkeitai (Naval military police) – forced women whose fathers attacked the Kenpeitai (Army military police) to work in front-line brothels in China, Indochina, and Indonesia. These documents were initially made public at the war crimes trial. In one of these, a lieutenant is quoted as confessing to having organized a brothel and having used it himself. Another source refers to Tokkeitai members having arrested women on the streets and putting them in brothels after enforced medical examinations.

On May 12, 2007, journalist Taichiro Kajimura announced the discovery of 30 Dutch government documents submitted to the Tokyo tribunal as evidence of a forced mass prostitution incident in 1944 in Magelang.

The South Korean government designated Bae Jeong-ja as a pro-Japanese collaborator (chinilpa) in September 2007 for recruiting comfort women.

In 2014, China produced almost 90 documents from the archives of the Kwantung Army on the issue. According to China, the documents provide ironclad proof that the Japanese military forced Asian women to work in front-line brothels before and during World War II.

In June 2014, more official documents were made public from the government of Japan's archives, documenting sexual violence and women forced into sexual slavery, committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers in French Indochina and Indonesia.

A 2015 study examined archival data which was previously difficult to access, partly due to the China-Japan Joint Communiqué of 1972 in which the Chinese government agreed not to seek any restitution for wartime crimes and incidents. New documents discovered in China shed light on facilities inside comfort stations operated within a Japanese army compound, and the conditions of the Korean comfort women. Documents were discovered verifying the Japanese Army as the funding agency for purchasing some comfort women.

Documents were found in Shanghai that showed details of how the Japanese Army went about opening comfort stations for Japanese troops in occupied Shanghai. Documents included the Tianjin Municipal Archives from the archival files of the Japanese government and the Japanese police during the periods of the occupation in World War II. Municipal archives from Shanghai and Nanjing were also examined. One conclusion reached was that the relevant archives in Korea are distorted. A conclusion of the study was that the Japanese Imperial government, and the colonial government in Korea, tried to avoid recording the illegal mobilization of comfort women. It was concluded that they burned most of the records immediately before the surrender; but, the study confirmed that some documents and records survived.

Number of comfort women

Professor Su Jiliang concludes that during the seven-year period from 1938 to 1945, "comfort women" in the territory occupied by the Japanese numbered 360,000 to 410,000, among whom the Chinese were the largest group, about 200,000. Lack of official documentation has made estimating the total number of comfort women difficult. Vast amounts of material pertaining to war crimes, and the responsibility of the nation's highest leaders, were destroyed on the orders of the Japanese government at the end of the war. Historians have arrived at various estimates by looking at surviving documentation, which indicates the ratio of soldiers in a particular area to the number of women, and replacement rates of the women. Historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi, who conducted the first academic study on the topic and brought the issue out into the open, estimated the number to be between 50,000 and 200,000.

Based on these estimates, most international media sources quote about 200,000 young women were kidnapped by Japanese soldiers to serve in military brothels. The BBC quotes "200,000 to 300,000", and the International Commission of Jurists quotes "estimates of historians of 100,000 to 200,000 women."

Countries of origin

According to State University of New York at Buffalo professor Yoshiko Nozaki and other sources, the majority of the women were from Korea and China. Chuo University 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. Ikuhiko Hata, a professor of Nihon University, estimated the number of women working in the licensed pleasure quarter was fewer than 20,000 and that they were 40% Japanese, 20% Koreans, 10% Chinese, with others making up the remaining 30%. According to Hata, the total number of government-regulated prostitutes in Japan was only 170,000 during World War II. Others came from the Philippines, Taiwan, the Dutch East Indies, and other Japanese-occupied countries and regions. Some Dutch women, captured in Dutch colonies in Asia, were also forced into sexual slavery.

In further analysis of the Imperial Army medical records for venereal disease treatment from 1940, Yoshimi concluded that if the percentages of women treated reflected the general makeup of the total comfort women population, Korean women comprised 51.8 percent, Chinese 36 percent and Japanese 12.2 percent.

In 1997, Bruce Cumings, a historian of Korea, wrote that Japan had forced quotas to supply the comfort women program, and that Korean men helped recruit the victims. Cumings stated that between 100,000 and 200,000 Korean girls and women were recruited. In Korea, the daughters of the gentry and the bureaucracy were spared from being sent into the "comfort women corps" unless they or their families showed signs of pro-independence tendencies, and the overwhelming majority of the Korean girls taken into the "comfort women corps" came from the poor. The Army and Navy often subcontracted the work of taking girls into the "comfort women corps" in Korea to contractors, who were usually associated in some way with organized crime groups, who were paid for girls they presented. Though a substantial minority of the contractors in Korea were Japanese, the majority were Korean.

A Dutch government study described how the Japanese military itself seized the women by force in the Dutch East Indies. It concluded that among the 200 to 300 European women found in the Japanese military brothels, "some sixty five were most certainly forced into prostitution". Others, faced with starvation in the refugee camps, agreed to offers of food and payment for work, the nature of which was not completely revealed to them. Some of the women also volunteered in hopes protecting the younger ones. The women forced into prostitution may therefore be much higher than the Dutch record have previously indicated. The number of Dutch women that were sexually assaulted or molested were also largely ignored. As well as being raped and sexually assaulted every day and night, the Dutch girls lived in constant fear of beatings and other physical violence.

J.F. van Wagtendonk and the Dutch Broadcast Foundation estimated a total number of 400 Dutch girls were taken from the camps to become comfort women.

Besides Dutch women, many Javanese were also recruited from Indonesia as comfort women including around 1000 East Timorese women and girls who also used as sexual slaves. Most were adolescent girls aged 14–19 who had completed some education and were deceived through promises of higher education in Tokyo or Singapore. Common destinations of comfort women from Java included Burma, Thailand, and Eastern Indonesia. Interviews conducted with former comfort women also suggest that some women came from the island of Flores. After the war, many Javanese comfort women who survived stayed in the locations where they had been trafficked to and became integrated into local populations.

Melanesian women from New Guinea were also used as comfort women. Local women were recruited from Rabaul as comfort women, along with a small number of mixed Japanese-Papuan women born to Japanese fathers and Papuan mothers.

To date, only one Japanese woman has published her testimony. This was done in 1971, when a former comfort woman forced to work for Showa soldiers in Taiwan published her memoirs under the pseudonym of Suzuko Shirota.

More than 2,000 Taiwanese women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military, as of 2020 only two were still believed to be alive.

Treatment of comfort women

Based on a statement made by Representative Seijuro Arahune of the Japanese Diet in 1975 in which he claimed to cite numbers provided by Korean authorities during the 1965 Korea-Japan Treaty negotiations, as many as three-fourths of Korean comfort women may have died during the war, although the validity of this statement has since been brought into question as the number does not seem to be based on an actual investigation on the matter. Some sources further purport that most survivors were left infertile after the war, although it is unclear where this notion originated, as little in the way of a statistical study seems to have been conducted on the incidence of infertility among former comfort women.

According to an account by a survivor, she was beaten when she attempted to resist being raped. The women who were not prostitutes prior to joining the "comfort women corps", especially those taken in by force, were normally "broken in" by being raped. One Korean woman, Kim Hak-sun stated in a 1991 interview about how she was drafted into the "comfort women corps" in 1941: "When I was 17 years old, the Japanese soldiers came along in a truck, beat us , and then dragged us into the back. I was told if I were drafted, I could earn lots of money in a textile factory...The first day I was raped and the rapes never stopped...I was born a woman but never lived as a woman...I feel sick when I come close to a man. Not just Japanese men, but all men-even my own husband who saved me from the brothel. I shiver whenever I see a Japanese flag...Why should I feel ashamed? I don't have to feel ashamed." Kim stated that she was raped 30–40 times a day, everyday of the year during her time as a "comfort woman". Reflecting their dehumanized status, Army and Navy records where referring to the movement of "comfort women" always used the term "units of war supplies". One Japanese Army doctor, Asō Tetsuo testified that the "comfort women" were seen as "female ammunition" and as "public toilets", as literally just things to be used and abused, with some "comfort women" being forced to donate blood for the treatment of wounded soldiers. At least 80% of the "comfort women" were Korean, who were assigned to the lower ranks while Japanese and European women went to the officers. For example, Dutch women captured in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) were reserved exclusively for the officers. Korea is a Confucian country where premarital sex was widely disapproved of, and since the Korean teenagers taken into the "comfort women corps" were almost always virgins, it was felt that this was the best way to limit the spread of venereal diseases that would otherwise incapacitate soldiers and sailors.

Ten Dutch women were taken by force from prison camps in Java by officers of the Imperial Japanese Army to become forced sex slaves in February 1944. They were systematically beaten and raped day and night. As a victim of the incident, in 1990, Jan Ruff-O'Herne testified to a U.S. House of Representatives committee:

Many stories have been told about the horrors, brutalities, suffering and starvation of Dutch women in Japanese prison camps. But one story was never told, the most shameful story of the worst human rights abuse committed by the Japanese during World War II: The story of the “Comfort Women”, the jugun ianfu, and how these women were forcibly seized against their will, to provide sexual services for the Japanese Imperial Army. In the “comfort station” I was systematically beaten and raped day and night. Even the Japanese doctor raped me each time he visited the brothel to examine us for venereal disease.

In their first morning at the brothel, photographs of Ruff-O'Herne and the others were taken and placed on the veranda which was used as a reception area for the Japanese personnel who would choose from these photographs. Over the following four months the girls were raped and beaten day and night, with those who became pregnant forced to have abortions. After four harrowing months, the girls were moved to a camp at Bogor, in West Java, where they were reunited with their families. This camp was exclusively for women who had been put into military brothels, and the Japanese warned the inmates that if anyone told what had happened to them, they and their family members would be killed. Several months later the O'Hernes were transferred to a camp at Batavia, which was liberated on August 15, 1945.

At Blora, twenty European women and girls were imprisoned in two houses. Over a period of three weeks, as Japanese units passed by the houses, the women and their daughters were brutally and repeatedly raped.

In the Bangka Island, most of the Australian nurses captured were raped before they were murdered.

The Japanese officers involved received some punishment by Japanese authorities at the end of the war. After the end of the war, 11 Japanese officers were found guilty with one soldier being sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court. The court decision found that the charge violated was the Army's order to hire only voluntary women. Victims from East Timor testified they were forced into slavery even when they were not old enough to have started menstruating. The court testimonies state that these prepubescent girls were repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers while those who refused to comply were killed.

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, in what is now 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". 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, though they "cried and begged for help".

During the last stand of Japanese forces in 1944–45, "comfort women" were often forced to commit suicide or were killed. At the Truk naval base, 70 "comfort women" were killed prior to the expected American assault as the Navy mistook the American air raid that destroyed Truk as the prelude to an American landing while during the Battle of Saipan "comfort women" were among those who committed suicide by jumping off the cliffs of Saipan. The Japanese government had told the Japanese colonists on Saipan that the American "white devils" were cannibals, and so the Japanese population preferred suicide to falling into the hands of the American "white devils". In Burma, there were cases of Korean "comfort women" committing suicide by swallowing cyanide pills or being killed by having a hand grenade tossed into their dug-outs. During the Battle of Manila, when Japanese sailors ran amok and simply killed everyone, there were cases of "comfort women" being killed, though there does not seem to have been any systematic policy of killing "comfort women". Japanese propaganda had it that the Anglo-American "white devils" were cannibals whose favorite food were Asians, and it is possible that many of the Asian "comfort women" may have actually believed this, and so preferred suicide to the supposed horrors of being eaten alive by the "white devils". British soldiers fighting in Burma often reported that the Korean "comfort women" whom they captured were astonished to learn that the British were not going to eat them. Ironically, given this claim, there were cases of starving Japanese troops cut off on remote Pacific islands or trapped in the jungles of Burma turning towards cannibalism, and there were at least several cases where "comfort women" in Burma and on Pacific islands were killed to provide protein for the Imperial Japanese Army.

Sterility, abortion and reproduction

The Japanese Army and Navy went to great lengths to avoid venereal diseases with large numbers of condoms being handed out for free. For example, documents show that in July 1943 the Army handed out 1,000 condoms for soldiers in Negri Sembilan and another 10,000 for soldiers in Perak. The "comfort women" were usually injected with salvarsan, which together with damage to the vagina caused by rape or rough sex were the causes of unusually high rates of sterility among the "comfort women". As the war went on and as the shortages caused by the sinking of almost the entire Japanese merchant marine by American submarines kicked in, medical care for the "comfort women" declined as dwindling medical supplies were reserved for the servicemen. As Japanese logistics broke down as the American submarines sank one Japanese ship after another, condoms had to be washed and reused, reducing their effectiveness. In the Philippines, "comfort women" were billed by Japanese doctors if they required medical treatment. In many cases, "comfort women" who were seriously ill were abandoned to die alone.

The Survey of Korean Comfort Women Used by Japanese Soldiers said that 30% of the interviewed former Korean comfort women produced biological children and 20% adopted children after World War II.

History of the issue

In 1944, Allied forces captured twenty Korean comfort women and two Japanese comfort station owners in Burma and issued a report, Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report 49. According to the report, Korean women were deceived into being used as comfort women by the Japanese; in 1942, there were about 800 women trafficked from Korea to Burma for this purpose, under the pretence of being recruited for work such as visiting the wounded in hospitals or rolling bandages.

According to the report, the "house master" of the brothel received fifty to sixty percent of the women's gross earnings, depending on how much debt they had incurred when they signed their contracts. In an average month a woman would gross about fifteen hundred yen, and hence turn over about seven hundred and fifty to the "master". Their living conditions were relatively good, with food and other material not heavily rationed, but many "masters" charged the women high prices for them.

In the latter part of 1943 the Japanese Army issued orders that certain women who had paid their debt could return home, and some of them did so return.

In Confucian nations like Korea and China, where premarital sex is considered shameful, the subject of the "comfort women" was ignored for decades after 1945 as the victims were considered pariahs. In Confucian cultures, traditionally an unmarried woman must value her chastity above her own life, and any women who loses her virginity before marriage for whatever reason is expected to commit suicide; by choosing to live, the survivors made themselves into outcasts.

In 1973, Kakou Senda wrote a book about the comfort women system that focused on Japanese participants. His book has been widely criticized as distorting the facts by both Japanese and South Korean historians. This was the first postwar mention of the comfort women system and became an important source for 1990s activism on the issue.

The first book written by a Korean on the subject of comfort women appeared in 1981. However, it was a plagiarism of a 1976 Japanese book by the zainichi author Kim Il-Myeon.

In 1989, the testimony of Seiji Yoshida was translated into Korean. His book was debunked as fraudulent by some Japanese and Korean journalists, and in May 1996 Yoshida admitted that his memoir was fictional, stating in an interview by Shūkan Shinchō that "There is no profit in writing the truth in books. Hiding the facts and mixing them with your own assertions is something that newspapers do all the time too". In August 2014, the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun also retracted articles that the paper had published based on or including information from Yoshida, in large part because of pressure from conservative activists and organizations. Following the retraction, attacks from conservatives increased. Takashi Uemura, a journalist who wrote one of the retracted articles, was subject to similar attacks from conservatives, and his employer, Hokusei Gakuen University, was pressured to terminate his position.

In 1993, following multiple testimonies, the Kono Statement (named after then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono) was issued by Japanese Government confirming that coercion was involved in seizing the comfort women. In 1999, the Japanese historian Kazuko Watanabe complained about a lack of sisterhood among Japanese women, citing a survey showing 50% of Japanese women did not believe in the stories of the "comfort women", charging that many Japanese simply regard other Asians as "others" whose feelings do not count. In 2007, the Japanese government issued a response to questions which had been posed to Prime Minister Abe about his position on the issue, concluding that "No evidence was found that the Japanese army or the military officials seized the women by force." In 2014, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga formed a team to reexamine the background of the report. The review brought to light coordination between Japan and South Korea in the process of composing the Kono Statement and concluded that, at the request of Seoul, Tokyo stipulated coercion was involved in recruiting the women. After the review, Suga and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stated that Japan continues to uphold the Kono Statement.

In 2014, China released documents it said were "ironclad proof" that the comfort women were forced to work as prostitutes against their will, including documents from the Japanese Kwantung Army military police corps archives and documents from the national bank of Japan's puppet regime in Manchuria.

In 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan asserted officially the view that the expression “sex slaves” contradicts the facts and should not be used, noting that this point had been confirmed with South Korea in a Japan-South Korea agreement.

In 2021, Mark Ramseyer, Professor of Japanese Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, stated his view that "The Japanese army did not dragoon Korean women to work in its brothels. It did not use Korean women as sex slaves. The claims to the contrary are simply ー factually ー false."

Apologies and compensation

In 1951, at the start of negotiations, the South Korean government initially demanded $364 million in compensation for Koreans forced into labor and military service during the Japanese occupation: $200 per survivor, $1,650 per death and $2,000 per injured person. In the final agreement reached in the 1965 treaty, Japan provided an $800 million aid and low-interest loan package over 10 years. Japan intended to directly compensate individuals, but the Korean government insisted on receiving the sum itself and "spent most of the money on economic development, focusing on infrastructure and the promotion of heavy industry".

In 1994, the Japanese government set up the public-private Asian Women's Fund (AWF) to distribute additional compensation to South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. Sixty one Korean, 13 Taiwanese, 211 Filipino, and 79 Dutch former comfort women were provided 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." Many former Korean comfort women rejected the compensations on principle – although the Asian Women's Fund was set up by the Japanese government, its money came not from the government but from private donations, hence the compensation was not "official". Eventually, 61 former Korean comfort women accepted 5 million yen (approx. $42,000) per person from the AWF along with the signed apology, while 142 others received funds from the government of Korea. The fund was dissolved on March 31, 2007.

Three South Korean women filed suit in Japan in December 1991, around the time of the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, demanding compensation for forced prostitution. In 1992, documents which had been stored since 1958 when they were returned by United States troops and which indicated that the military had played a large role in operating what were euphemistically called "comfort stations" were found in the library of Japan's Self-Defense Agency. The Japanese Government admitted that the Imperial Japanese Army had forced tens of thousands of Korean women to have sex with Japanese soldiers during World War II. On January 14, 1992, Japanese Chief Government Spokesman Koichi Kato issued an official apology saying, "We cannot deny that the former Japanese army played a role" in abducting and detaining the "comfort girls," and "We would like to express our apologies and contrition". Three days later on January 17, 1992, at a dinner given by South Korean President Roh Tae Woo, the Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa told his host: "We Japanese should first and foremost recall the truth of that tragic period when Japanese actions inflicted suffering and sorrow upon your people. We should never forget our feelings of remorse over this. As Prime Minister of Japan, I would like to declare anew my remorse at these deeds and tender my apology to the people of the Republic of Korea." He apologized again the following day in a speech before South Korea's National Assembly. On April 28, 1998, the Japanese court ruled that the Government must compensate the women and awarded them US$2,300 (equivalent to $4,299 in 2023) each.

In 2007, the surviving sex slaves wanted an apology from the Japanese government. Shinzō Abe, the prime minister at the time, stated on March 1, 2007, that there was no evidence that the Japanese government had kept sex slaves, even though the Japanese government had already admitted the use of coercion in 1993. On March 27 the Japanese parliament issued an official apology. On February 20, 2014, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the Japanese government may reconsider the study and the apology. However, Prime Minister Abe clarified on March 14, 2014, that he had no intention of renouncing or altering it.

On December 28, 2015, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye reached a formal agreement to settle the dispute. Abe again expressed his most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women and acknowledged that they had undergone immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women. He stated that Japan continued to hold the position that issues relating to property and claims between Japan and the ROK, including the issue of comfort women, had been settled completely and finally by the Japan-ROK Claims Settlement and Economic Cooperation Agreement of 1965 and welcomed the fact that the issue of comfort women is resolved “finally and irreversibly” with this agreement. Japan agreed to pay ¥1 billion (₩9.7 billion; $8.3 million) to a fund supporting surviving victims while South Korea agreed to refrain from criticizing Japan regarding the issue and to work to remove a statue memorializing the victims from in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. The announcement came after Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met his counterpart Yun Byung-se in Seoul, and later Prime Minister Shinzo Abe phoned President Park Geun-hye to repeat an apology already offered by Kishida. The Korean government will administer the fund for the forty-six remaining elderly comfort women and will consider the matter "finally and irreversibly resolved". However, one Korean news organization, Hankyoreh, said that it fails to include the request from the survivals of sexual slavery to state the Japanese government's legal responsibility for the state-level crime of enforcing a system of sexual slavery. The South Korean government did not attempt to collect the viewpoints on the issues from the women most directly affected by it—the survivors themselves. Concerning the deal between two countries, literally, Seoul and Tokyo failed to reach a breakthrough on the comfort women issue during the 11th round of Foreign Ministry director-general level talks on December 15, 2015. Several comfort women protested the agreement as they claim they did not want money, but to see a sincere acknowledgement of the legal responsibility by the Japanese government. The co-representative of a support group of the surviving women expressed that the settlement with Japan does not reflect the will of the comfort women, and they vowed to seek its invalidation by reviewing legal options.

On February 16, 2016, the United Nations' "Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women", Seventh and Eighth Periodic Reports, was held, with Shinsuke Sugiyama, Deputy Minister for Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan), reiterating the official and final agreement between Japan and South Korea to pay ¥1 billion. Sugiyama also restated the Japanese Government apology of that agreement: "The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honor and dignity of large numbers of women, and the Government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities."

In August 2016, twelve comfort women filed suit against the government of South Korea, declaring that the government had nullified the victims’ individual rights to claim damages from Japan by signing an agreement not to demand further legal responsibility without consulting with the victims themselves. The suit claimed the 2015 deal violated a 2011 Constitutional Court ruling that the South Korean government must “offer its cooperation and protection so that citizens whose human dignity and values have been violated through illegal actions perpetrated by Japan can invoke their rights to demand damages from Japan.”

In, January 2018, South Korea's president Moon Jae-in called the 2015 agreement "undeniable" and that it "finally and irreversibly" is an official agreement between the two countrie, however when referring to aspects of the agreement he finds flawed, he said, "A knot wrongly tied should be untied." These remarks come a day after the government announced it would not seek to renew the 2015 aggreement, but that it wants Japan to do more to settle the issue. Moon said, "A real settlement would come if the victims can forgive, after Japan makes a sincere apology and takes other actions". In March 2018, the Japanese government argued that the 2015 Japan-South Korea agreement confirmed that this issue was finally and irreversibly resolved and lodged a strong protest to South Korea through diplomatic channels, stating that "such a statement goes against the agreement and is therefore completely unacceptable and extremely regrettable".

On June 15, 2018, The 20th civil division of Seoul Central District Court dismissed the comfort women’s suit seeking damages against the South Korean government for signing the 2015 agreement with Japan. The court announced that the intergovernmental comfort women agreement “certainly lacked transparency or was deficient in recognizing ‘legal responsibility’ and on the nature of the one billion yen provided by the Japanese government”. However, "an examination of the process and content leading up to the agreement cannot be seen as discharging the plaintiffs’ right to claim damages.”. An attorney for the survivors said they would be appealing the decision on the basis that it recognizes the lawfulness of the 2015 Japan-South Korean agreement.

On January 8, 2021, Seoul Central District Court ordered the government of Japan to pay reparations of 100 million won ($91,300) each to the families of the twelve women. On the court case, referring to the principle of Sovereign immunity guaranteed by International law, the Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said that "a sovereign state should not be put under the jurisdiction of foreign courts", claiming that the lawsuit should be rejected. And Suga stressed that the issue is already settled completely and finally, through the 1965 Agreement on the Settlement of Problems concerning Property and Claims and on Economic Cooperation". On the same day, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi also spoke about the lawsuit of a claim for damages against Japanese government consistently in Extraordinary Press Conference from Brazil.

Controversies

The novel My War Crime, written by Seiji Yoshida in 1983, which played a major role in publicizing the issue of comfort women, was later found to be mere fiction, causing the Asahi Shimbun newspaper to publish several retractions and apologies to its readers, as recently as 2014.

A 2001 comic book, Neo Gomanism Manifesto Special – 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 the women worked in more hygienic conditions compared to regular prostitutes because the use of condoms was mandatory.

In early 2001, in a controversy involving national public broadcaster NHK, what was supposed to be coverage of the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery was heavily edited to reflect revisionist views. In 2014, the new president of NHK compared the wartime Japanese comfort women program to Asian brothels frequented by American troops, which western historians countered by pointing out the difference between the Japanese comfort stations, which forced women to have sex with Japanese troops, and Asian brothels, where women chose to be prostitutes for American troops.

In publications around 2007, Japanese historian and Nihon University professor Ikuhiko Hata estimates the number of comfort women to have been more likely between 10,000 and 20,000. Hata claims that "none of were forcibly recruited".

In 2012, the former mayor of Osaka and co-leader of the Japan Restoration Party, Tōru Hashimoto initially maintained that "there is no evidence that people called comfort women were taken away by violence or threat by the military". He later modified his position, asserting that they became comfort women "against their will by any circumstances around them", still justifying their role during World War II as "necessary", so that soldiers could "have a rest".

In 2014, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone chaired a commission established to consider "concrete measures to restore Japan's honor with regard to the comfort women issue", despite his own father Yasuhiro Nakasone, having organized a "comfort station" in 1942 when he was a lieutenant paymaster in Japan's Imperial Navy.

In 2018 the Japan Times changed its description of the terms 'comfort woman' and 'forced labourer' causing a controversy among staff and readers.

On August 18, 2018, United Nations rights experts and UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed that Japan should do more for sufferers of wartime sexual slavery. Japan responded by stating it has already made numerous apologies and offered compensation to the victims.

Asahi Shimbun Third-Party Investigative Committee

In August 2014, the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's second largest newspaper in circulation, retracted 16 articles published between 1982 and 1997. The articles were concerned with former imperial army officer Seiji Yoshida, who claimed he had forcibly taken Korean women to wartime Japanese military brothels from the Jeju Island region in South Korea. Following the retraction of the articles, the newspaper also refused to publish an op-ed on the matter by Japanese journalist Akira Ikegami. The public response and criticism that ensued pushed the newspaper to nominate a third-party investigative committee headed by seven leading scholars, journalists and legal experts. The committee report dealt with the circumstances leading to the publication of Yoshida's false testimony and to the effect these publications had on Japan's image abroad and diplomatic relations with various countries. It found that the Asahi was negligent in publishing Yoshida's testimony, but that the reports on the testimony had "limited" effect on foreign media outlets and reports. On the other hand, the report found that Japanese officials’ comments on the issue had a far more detrimental effect on Japan's image and its diplomatic relations.

Fraud accusations against the House of Sharing and the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery

In 2004,13 former comfort women filed a complaint against the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery and the House of Sharing with the Seoul Western District Court to prevent these two organizations from profiting and exploiting the victims’ past experiences to collect donations. The victims accused Shin Hye-Soo, head of the Korean Council at the time, and Song Hyun-Seob, Head of the House of Sharing, of using the women’s past experiences in videos and leaflets without their permission to solicit donations and then keeping the money instead of using it to help the victims. The complaint further stated that a significant number of victims did not receive compensation through the citizen-funded Asian Women's Fund established in 1995 by Japan due to the opposition from the organizations in 1998. In addition, they accused the institutions of recruiting six former comfort women survivors from China and paying them to get them to partake in weekly rallies. The complaint was dismissed by the court in May 2005.

Again, in May 2020, Lee Yong-Soo, a comfort woman survivor and longtime activist for the victims, held a press conference and accused the Korean Council and its former head, Yoon Mee-hyang, of exploiting her and other survivors, politically and financially for decades, to obtain government funds and public donations through the protests while spending little money aiding them.

Consequently, a civic group filed a complaint against Yoon Mee-hyang, a lawmaker-elect and former head of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. After an investigation, the Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Yoon, on eight charges including fraud, embezzlement and breach of trust.  

Among the charges, Yoon was indicted for is a count of quasi-fraud against Gil Won-ok, a 92-year-old survivor. The prosecution said Gil suffers from dementia and that Yoon had exploited her reduced physical and mental capacities and pressed her to donate a total of 79.2 million won ($67,102) to the Korean Council between November 2017 and January 2020.

Additionally, she was accused of fraud and embezzlement of almost half a million dollars from governmental organizations and private donors, which were used to buy properties and even pay tuition for her daughter’s education at the University of California.

In a forensic audit of the comfort women’s shelter controlled by Yoon’s group, it was found that barely 2.3% of its massive $7.5 million budget raised since 2015 was actually spent on supporting the living needs of surviving comfort women, many of whom live in cramped quarters, with substandard care, with few luxuries.

On September 2020, the Democratic Party (DP) suspended Yoon’s party membership due to the charges that she was facing.

International support

The cause has long been supported beyond the victim nations, and associations like Amnesty International are campaigning in countries where governments have yet to support the cause, like in Australia, or New Zealand. Support in the United States continues to grow, particularly after the United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121 was passed on July 30, 2007, asking the Japanese government to redress the situation and to incorporate internationally accepted actual historical facts about this program into their educational system. In July 2012, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a strong advocate of the cause, denounced the use of the euphemism 'comfort women' for what should be referred to as 'enforced sex slaves'. The Obama Administration also addressed the need for Japan to do more to address the issue. In addition to calling attention to the issue, the American memorial statues erected in New Jersey in 2010 and California in 2013 show support for what has become an international cause.

On December 13, 2007, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on "Justice for the 'Comfort Women' (sex slaves in Asia before and during World War II)" calling on the Japanese government to apologise and accept legal responsibility for the coercion of young women into sexual slavery before and during WWII.

In 2014, Pope Francis met with seven former comfort women in South Korea. Also in 2014, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called for Japan to, as the committee's deputy head Anastasia Crickley put it, "conclude investigations into the violations of the rights of ‘comfort women’ by the military and to bring to justice those responsible and to pursue a comprehensive and lasting resolution to these issues". U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay had also spoken out in support of comfort women several times.

Health-related issues

In the aftermath of the war, the women recalled bouts of physical and mental abuse that they had experienced while working in military brothels. In the Rorschach test, the women showed distorted perceptions, difficulty in managing emotional reactions and internalized anger. A 2011 clinical study found that comfort women are more prone to showing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), even 60 years after the end of the war.

Survivors

The last surviving victims have become public figures in Korea, where they are referred to as "halmoni", the affectionate term for "grandmother". There is a nursing home, called House of Sharing, for former comfort women in South Korea. China remains more at the testimony collection stage, particularly through the China "Comfort Women" Issue Research Center at Shanghai Normal University, sometimes in collaboration with Korean researchers. For other nations, the research and the interaction with victims is less advanced.

Despite the efforts at assigning responsibility and victims compensation, in the years after World War II, many former Korean comfort women were afraid to reveal their past, because they are afraid of being disowned or ostracized further.

Memorials and organizations

China

On December 1, 2015, the first memorial hall dedicated to Chinese comfort women was opened in Nanjing. It was built on the site of a former comfort station run by the invading Japanese troops during World War II. The memorial hall stands next to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders.

In June 2016, Research Center for Chinese Comfort Women was established at Shanghai Normal University. It is a museum that exhibits photographs and various items related to comfort women in China.

South Korea

Wednesday demonstrations

Every Wednesday, living comfort women, women's organizations, socio-civic groups, religious groups, and a number of individuals participate in the Wednesday Demonstrations in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, sponsored by “The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (KCWDMSS)”. It was first held on January 8, 1992, when Japan's Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa visited the South Korea. In December 2011, a statue of a young woman was erected in front of the Japanese Embassy to honor the comfort women on the 1,000th Wednesday Demonstration. The Japanese government has repeatedly asked the South Korean government to have the statue taken down, but it has not been removed.

On December 28, 2015, the Japanese government claimed that the Korean government agreed the removal of the statue. As of September 3, 2016, the statue was still in place due to a majority of the South Korean population being opposed to the agreement. On December 30, 2016, another comfort woman statue identical to the one in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul was erected in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan, South Korea. As of January 6, 2017, the Japanese government is attempting to negotiate the removal of the statue. On May 11, 2017, newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced the agreement would not be enacted in its current stage and that negotiations for a deal between Japan and South Korea over the comfort women dispute had to start over.

On June 30, 2017, the local government of Busan enacted the legal foundation to protect the Statue of Peace by passing the relative ordinance. By reason of this, it has become difficult to shift the site or demolish the statue.

On August 14, 2018, South Korea held an unveiling ceremony for a monument memorializing Korean women forced to work in wartime brothels for the Japanese military, as the nation observed its first official "comfort women" memorial day.

On November 21, 2018, South Korea officially cancelled the 2015 agreement and shut down the Japan-funded comfort women foundation which was launched in July 2016 to finance the agreement's settlement to the victims. This settlement received criticism after the ministry of former President Park Geun-hye refused to ask for consent from the comfort women before it was agreed to.

House of Sharing

The House of Sharing is a nursing home for living comfort women. The House of Sharing was founded in June 1992 through funds raised by Buddhist organizations and various socio-civic groups and it moved to Gyeonggi-do, South Korea in 1998. The House of Sharing includes “The Museum of Sexual Slavery by Japanese Military” to spread the truth about the Japanese military's brutal abuse of comfort women and to educate descendants and the public.

Archives by comfort women

Some of the survivors, Kang Duk-kyung, Kim Soon-duk and Lee Yong-Nyeo, preserved their personal history through their drawings as a visual archive. Also, the director of the Center for Asian American Media, Dai Sil Kim-Gibson, made a comfort women video archive, a documentary film for K–12 through college level students. Feminist visual and video archives have promoted a place for solidarity between the victims and the public. It has served as a living site for the teaching and learning of women's dignity and human rights by bringing people together despite age, gender, borders, nationality, and ideologies.

Philippines

Comfort women in the Philippines, called "Lolas" (grandmothers), formed different groups similar to the Korean survivors. One group, named "Lila Pilipina" (League of Filipino Women), started in 1992 and is member of GABRIELA, a feminist organization. Together with the Malaya Lolas (Free grandmothers) they ask for a formal apology from the Japanese government, compensation, and the inclusion of the issue in the Japanese history textbooks. These groups also ask the Philippine government to back their claims against the Japanese government. These groups have taken legal actions against Japan. As of August 2014, after failing in legal action against their own government to back their claims, they planned to take the case the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and Children (CEDAW).

These groups have made demonstrations in front of the Japanese embassy in Manila on many occasions, and have given testimonies to Japanese tourists in Manila.

Similar to the Korean grandmothers, Filipino "Lolas" have their own Grandmother house with a collection of their testimonies. Also two of them have published two autobiographic books: Comfort Woman: Slave of Destiny by Rosa Henson and The Hidden Battle of Leyte: The Picture Diary of a Girl Taken by the Japanese Military by Remedios Felias. This second book was written in the 1990s, after Lila Filipina was formed.

In Bulacan, there is an empty villa house Bahay na Pula which was seized by Japanese soldiers during WWII and had been used as a comfort station where Filipino women were raped and held as comfort women. The Bahay na Pula is seen as a memorial to the forgotten Filipino comfort women in the Philippines.

On December 8, 2017, the 'Filipina Comfort Women' statue by artist Jonas Roces was installed in Baywalk, Roxas Boulevard in Manila. About four months later, the statue was removed by government officials due to a "drainage improvement project" along the Baywalk, and it has not been put back since.

Taiwan

Since the 1990s, Taiwanese survivors have been bringing to light the comfort woman issue in Taiwanese society, and gaining support from women's rights activists and civil groups. Their testimony and memories have been documented by newspapers, books, and documentary films.

Survivors' claims against the Japan government have been backed by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (TWRF) a non-profit organization helping women against violence, and sexual violence. This organization gives legal and psychological support to Taiwanese comfort women, and also helps in the recording of testimony and doing scholarly research. In 2007, this organization was responsible for promoting awareness in society, by creating meetings in universities and high schools where survivors gave their testimonies to students and the general public. TWRF has produced exhibitions that give survivors the opportunity to be heard in Taipei, and also in the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, based in Tokyo.

Thanks to this increasing awareness in society, and with the help of TWRF, Taiwanese comfort women have gained the support their government, which on many occasions has asked the Japanese government for apologies and compensation.

In November 2014, "Song of the Reed", a documentary film directed by Wu Hsiu-ching and produced by TWRF, won the International Gold Panda documentary award.

On August 14, 2018, the first 'comfort women' statue in Taiwan was unveiled in the city of Tainan. The statue symbolizes women forced to work in wartime brothels for the Japanese military. The bronze statue portrays a girl raising both hands to the sky to express her helpless resistance to suppression and silent protest, according to its creator. In September 2018, Japanese right-wing activist Mitsuhiko Fujii [ja] kicked the statue and caused outrage in Taiwan.

United States

In 2010, the first American monument dedicated to the comfort women was established in Palisades Park, New Jersey.

In 2013, a "comfort women" memorial statue called Peace Monument of Glendale was established in Glendale, California. The statue has been subject to multiple legal attempts to remove it. A federal judge dismissed a 2014 lawsuit for the statue's removal.

On May 30, 2014, a memorial was dedicated behind the Fairfax County Government Center in Virginia.

On August 16, 2014, a new memorial statue honoring the comfort women was unveiled in Southfield, Michigan.

In June 2017, Brookhaven, Georgia unveiled a statue memorializing the Comfort Women of World War II.

On September 22, 2017, in an initiative led by the local Chinese-American community, San Francisco erected a privately funded San Francisco Comfort Women Memorial to the comfort women of World War II. Some Japanese and Japanese-American opponents of the initiative argue the statue would promote hatred and anti-Japanese sentiment throughout the community and object to the statue singling out Japan. Tōru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, Japan, objected that the memorial should be "broadened to memorialize all the women who have been sexually assaulted and abused by soldiers of countries in the world". Supporting the statue, Heather Knight of the San Francisco Chronicle pointed to the San Francisco Holocaust Memorial and the landmarked Japanese internment camps in California as evidence that Japan is "not being singled out". In protest over the statue, Osaka ended the sister city relationship with San Francisco that had been established since 1957. When the city accepted the statue as public property in 2018, the mayor of Osaka sent a 10-page letter to the mayor of San Francisco, complaining of inaccuracies and unfairly singling out Japan for criticism.

A 2010 proposal to create a memorial in Koreatown, Fort Lee, New Jersey, has been controversial and as of 2017 remains undecided. On May 23, 2018, a comfort women memorial was installed in Constitution Park in Fort Lee, NJ. Youth Council of Fort Lee, a student organization led by Korean American high school students in Fort Lee designed the memorial.

On March 8, 2013, Bergen County dedicated a comfort women memorial by the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, NJ.

Germany

In March 2017, the first comfort women statue in Europe was elected in Wiesent, Bavaria, Germany. The statue was a replica of the bronze statue installed in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. Another German city, Freiburg, had planned to set up a comfort woman statue there but it was scuttled due to “strong obstruction and pressure” by Japan.

Australia

A comfort women statue was unveiled in Sydney in August 2016. The 1.5-metre statue imported from Korea was originally meant for a public park in Strathfield, but local council rejected it. Reverend Bill Crews then agreed to install the statue outside his church, Ashfield Uniting Church. He said,"It's finally found a home."

Notable former comfort women

A number of former comfort women had come forward and spoken out about their plight of being a comfort woman:

• Dutch East Indies – Jan Ruff O'Herne (1923–2019); Ellen van der Ploeg (1923–2013)
• Korea – Gil Won-ok (1928–); Kim Hak-sun (1924–1997); Lee Yong-soo (1928–); Song Sin-do (1922–2017); Yoo Hee-nam (1927–); Kim Bok-dong (1926-2019)
• Philippines – Rosa Henson (1927–97); Remedios Felias (1928–)
• Taiwan – Liu Huang A-tao (1923–2011)

Media

A Secret Buried for 50 Years is a 1998 documentary about the stories of 13 comfort women in Taiwan.

Spirits' Homecoming is a film about comfort women.

Thirty Two is a 2014 documentary about a Chinese comfort woman and her half-Japanese son from rape.

Twenty Two is a 2017 documentary about the lives of 22 surviving comfort women in China.

I Can Speak is a 2017 South Korean comedy-drama film starring Na Moon-hee as an elderly woman who travels to the United States to testify about her experience as a comfort woman.

Herstory is a 2018 South Korean drama film based on a real-life story of three comfort women and seven other victims during the Gwanbu Trial which took place in Shimonoseki in 1992.

Snowy Road is a 2015 South Korean movie film that tells the story about two teenage girls who are taken away from their homes and forced to become comfort women for the Japanese.

See also

References

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• Huang, Hua-Lun (2012). The Missing Girls and Women of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan: A Sociological Study of Infanticide, Forced Prostitution, Political Imprisonment, "Ghost Brides," Runaways and Thrownaways, 1900–2000s. McFarland. ISBN 9780786488346.
• Rose, Caroline (2005), Sino-Japanese relations: facing the past, looking to the future?, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-29722-6.
• Soh, C. Sarah (2009). The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-76777-2.
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• Yoshimi, Yoshiaki (2000), Comfort Women. Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, Asia Perspectives, translation: Suzanne O'Brien, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-12033-3{{citation}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link)
• Zhiliang, Su (1999). Weianfu yanjiu 慰安婦硏究 [Studies on the comfort women] (in Chinese) (Di 1 ban ed.). Shanghai Shudian Chubanshe. ISBN 978-7-80622-561-5.

Journal articles

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• Watanabe, Kazuko (1999). "Trafficking in Women's Bodies, Then and Now: The Issue of Military "Comfort Women"". Women's Studies Quarterly. 27 (1/2): 19–31. JSTOR 40003395.

News articles

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• "Human rights: Chad, women's rights in Saudi Arabia, Japan's wartime sex slaves". Europees Parlement. December 13, 2007. Archived from the original (– ) on May 19, 2008. Retrieved July 4, 2008. {{cite news}}: External link in |format= (help)
• Jeff Davis (November 28, 2007), MPs Moved to Tears by Comfort Women, Hill Times, archived from the original on May 18, 2008, retrieved July 4, 2008
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Online sources

• "European Parliament speaks out on sexual slavery during WWII". Amnesty international. December 13, 2007. Archived from the original on December 19, 2007. Retrieved July 4, 2008..
• Comfort women used to prevent military revolt during war: historian, Korea Times, November 30, 2007, retrieved December 30, 2015
• The "Comfort Women" Issue and the Asian Women's Fund (PDF), Asian Women's Fund, archived from the original (PDF) on June 28, 2007, archived from on 2007-06-28.
• Clancey, Patrick, ed. (November 1, 1948), "International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Chapter 8) – Judgment", Hyperwar, a hypertext history of the Second World War.
• Hata, Ikuhiko. No Organized or Forced Recruitment: Misconceptions about Comfort Women and the Japanese Military (PDF). hassin.sejp.net. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 4, 2008. Retrieved November 10, 2007. None of them was forcibly recruited.
• Horn, Dottie (January 1997), Comfort Women, Endeavors Magazine, archived from the original on June 25, 2008, retrieved October 5, 2008.
• Soh, C.Sarah (May 2001), Japan's Responsibility Toward Comfort Women Survivors, Japan Policy Research Institute (JPRI), retrieved July 1, 2008.
• WCCW (2004). "Comfort-Women.org FAQ". Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues. Archived from the original on June 15, 2007. Retrieved June 20, 2007. ( archived on 2007-06-15).
• Dudden, Alexis (April 25, 2006), US Congressional Resolution Calls on Japan to Accept Responsibility for Wartime Comfort Women, www.japanfocus.org, retrieved March 30, 2014.
• Nelson, Hank (May 17, 2007), The Consolation Unit: Comfort Women at Rabaul (PDF), The Australian National University, archived from the original (PDF) on June 10, 2007, retrieved November 26, 2007.
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• Asian Women's Fund (1996), Letter from Prime Minister to the former comfort women, since 1996, archived from the original on May 16, 2007, retrieved March 23, 2007, archived from on 2007-05-16.
• Nozaki, Yoshiko (August 1, 2005), The Horrible History of the "Comfort Women" and the Fight to Suppress Their Story, History news Network, retrieved July 4, 2008.
• Diary of a Japanese Military Comfort Station (Brothel) Manager (excerpt in English). Translated from Japanese version. July 20, 2018.

Further reading

• Drinck, Barbara and Gross, Chung-noh. Forced Prostitution in Times of War and Peace, Kleine Verlag, 2007. ISBN 978-3-89370-436-1.
• Hayashi, Hirofumi. "Disputes in Japan over the Japanese Military 'Comfort Women' System and Its Perception in History," Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science, May 2008, Vol. 617, pp 123–132
• Henson, Maria Rosa "Comfort woman: Slave of destiny", Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism: 1996. ISBN 971-8686-11-8.
• Henson, Maria Rose (1999). Comfort Woman: A Filipina's Story of Prostitution and Slavery Under the Japanese Military. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8476-9149-4. maria rosa henson.
• Hicks, George (1997), The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, W W Norton & Company Incorporated, ISBN 978-0-393-31694-0
• Howard, Keith; Hanʼguk Chŏngsindae Munje Taechʻaek Hyŏbŭihoe; Research Association on the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (1995). True stories of the Korean comfort women: testimonies. Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-33262-5.
• Keller, Nora Okja "Comfort Woman", London, Penguin: 1998. ISBN 0-14-026335-7.
• Kim-Gibson, D. Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women, 1999. ISBN 0-931209-88-9.
• Levin, Mark, Case Comment: Nishimatsu Construction Co. v. Song Jixiao Et Al., Supreme Court of Japan (2d Petty Bench), April 27, 2007, and Ko Hanako Et Al. V. Japan, Supreme Court of Japan (1st Petty Bench), April 27, 2007 (January 1, 2008). American Journal of International Law, Vol. 102, No. 1, pp. 148–154, January 2008. Available at SSRN:
• Molasky, Michael S. American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa, Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-19194-7, ISBN 0-415-26044-2.
• Przystup, James (July 2007). Glosserman, Brad; Namkung, Sun (eds.). "Japan-China Relations: Wen in Japan: Ice Melting But." (PDF). Comparative Connections, A Quarterly e-Journal on East Asian Bilateral Relations. 9 (2): 131–146. ISSN 1930-5370. Retrieved July 10, 2010.
• Schellstede, Sangmie Choi; Yu, Soon Mi (2000). Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military : Includes New United Nations Human Rights Report. Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8419-1413-1.
• Tanaka, Yuki. Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation, London, Routledge: 2002. ISBN 0-415-19401-6.
• Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashii "Comfort Women: Beyond Litigious Feminism"

External links

• Thinking about the comfort women issue, Look squarely at essence of 'comfort women' issue. on August 22, 2014, Asahi Shimbun
  • Testimony about 'forcible taking away of women on Jeju Island': Judged to be fabrication because supporting evidence not found on August 22, 2014, Asahi Shimbun
• Asian Women's Fund web site (archived from the original on 2007-02-02)
• Comfort-Women.org
• Digital Museum of The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women's Fund(in Japanese)
• Jugun Ianfu Indonesia at the Wayback Machine (archived October 27, 2009)
• 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 on YouTube, 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 on YouTube
• Photo gallery at the Seoul Times.
• A Public Betrayed – Comfort Women—The Asian Sex Slaves of World War II
• "Allies in adversity, Australia and the Dutch in the Pacific War: Comfort women" (Web page). Australian War Memorial. 2006. Retrieved December 12, 2017. – describes the experience of Jan O'Herne in Java
• Nakamura, Akemi; Ikuhiko Hata; Yoshiaki Yoshimi (March 20, 2007). "Comfort Women: Were they teen-rape slaves or paid pros?". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on July 4, 2007. Retrieved March 23, 2006.
• 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 on YouTube, song about comfort women composed by Mu Ting Zhang and directed by Po En Lee
• House of Sharing The "House of Sharing" is a South Korean home for surviving comfort women and incorporates "The Museum of Sexual Slavery".
• Justice For Comfort Women

Academic research

• "The Comfort Women project". Archived from the original on December 9, 2006. Retrieved April 22, 2005.
• 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, February 2003, issue on American studies of comfort women, Kandice Chuh, ed.

Japanese official statements

• "Japan's Efforts on the Issue of Comfort Women". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan). January 14, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
• "Diplomatic Bluebook 2019 / The Issue of Comfort Women". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan). 2019. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
• "Announcement by Foreign Ministers of Japan and the Republic of Korea at the Joint Press Occasion". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan). December 28, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
• "Letter from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the former comfort women". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan), 2001.
• "Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the occasion of the establishment of the Asian Women's Fund". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan), 1995.

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)
• Korea official website for sex slaves victims

• Comfort women
• Euphemisms
• Forced prostitution
• Japanese war crimes
• Wartime sexual violence
• Women in war
• Women in Korea
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• History of Asia
• Transitional justice
• Women in China
• Slavery in Japan
• Violence against women in Asia
• Sexism in Japan