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Comfort women
Korean name
Hangul위안부
Hanja慰安婦
Transcriptions
Revised Romanizationwianbu
McCune–Reischauerwianbu
Alternative Korean name
Hangul일본군 성노예
Hanja日本軍 性奴隸
Transcriptions
Revised Romanizationilbongun seongnoe
McCune–Reischauerilbongun songnoe
Japanese name
Kanji慰安婦
Transcriptions
Romanizationianfu
Alternative Japanese name
Kanji従軍慰安婦
Transcriptions
Romanizationjūgun-ianfu

Comfort women (慰安婦, ianfu) or military comfort women (従軍慰安婦, jūgun-ianfu) is a euphemism for women involved into prostitution and sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels during World War II, a proportion of whom were forced or coerced. Around 10,000 - 200,000 are estimated to have been procured, but there is still some disagreement about exact numbers. Historians and researchers have stated that the majority were from 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, Indonesia, then Malaya, Thailand, then Burma, then New Guinea, Hong Kong, Macau, and what was then French Indochina.

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, reportedly abducted against their will or recruited with offers to general work and subsequently forced or engaged in providing sexual services. The matter is still being actively debated, especially in South East Asian where it has political value for a number of different parties.

Many military brothels were run by private agents and supervised by the Japanese Army. Some Japanese historians, using the testimony of ex-comfort women, have argued that the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy were either directly or indirectly involved in coercing, deceiving, luring, and sometimes kidnapping young women throughout Japan's Asian colonies and occupied territories.

Rangoon, Burma. August 8, 1945. A young ethnic Chinese woman who was in one of the Imperial Japanese Army's "comfort battalions" is interviewed by an Allied officer.

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. Japanese authorities hoped that by providing easily accessible prostitutes, the morale and ultimately the military effectiveness of Japanese soldiers would be improved. Also, by institutionalizing brothels and placing them under official scrutiny, the government hoped to control the spread of STDs.

In spite of the analysis made by the author George Hicks mentioned in the preceding paragraph, military correspondence of Japanese Imperial Army shows that the aim of facilitating comfort stations was prevention of rape crimes committed by Japanese army personnel and thus preventing rise of hostility among people in occupied areas.

Recruitment

In the early stages of the war, Japanese authorities recruited prostitutes through conventional means. Middlemen 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.

On April 17, 2007, Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi announced the discovery, in the archives of the Tokyo Trials, of seven official documents suggesting that Imperial military forces, such as the Tokeitai (naval secret police), forced women whose fathers attacked the Kempei Tai (Japanese 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 having organized a brothel and having used it himself. Another source refers to Tokeitai members having arrested women on the streets, and after enforced medical examinations, putting them in brothels.

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

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, especially from Korea and occupied China. Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels. The US Army Force Office report of interview with 20 comfort women in Burma found that the girls were induced by the offer of plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, and on the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with advance of a few hundred yen.

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. 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.

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

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. Historians have arrived at various estimates by looking at surviving documentation which 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. 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.

Based on these estimates, most international media sources quote about 200,000 young women were recruited or kidnapped by soldiers to serve in Japanese 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."

Country of origin

Internationally, it is generally thought that most of the women were from Korea and China. Others came from the Philippines, Taiwan, 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.

According to a statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993, the origin of a large number of women transferred to the war areas, excluding those from Japan, were from the Korean Peninsula. This, with the addition of Chinese is supported by Kanto Gakuin University professor Hirofumi Hayashi To date, only one Japanese woman has published her testimony in 1971, under the pseudonym of Suzuko Shirota.

Treatment of comfort women

According to Unit 731 soldier Yasuji Kaneko "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." Beatings and physical torture were said to be not uncommon.

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". As a victim of the incident, Jan Ruff-O'Hearn 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 so-called “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." Although they were returned to the prison camps within three months upon protest of the Dutch prisoners against the Imperial Army, the Japanese officers were not punished by Japanese authorities until the end of the war. After the end of the war 11 Japanese officers were declared guilty with one sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court. It decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army and that the ones who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women.

Some researchers have found documents giving instructions not to treat comfort women violently. However, some victims from East Timor testified they were forced when they were not old enough to have started menstruating and repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers.

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.”

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.”

Evidence

After its defeat the Japanese military destroyed many documents for fear of war crimes prosecution. There is hard evidence proving official orders from the Japanese Ministry of War to destroy evidence.

Historians have searched for evidence of the Army and Navy's coercion, and some written proof has been discovered, such as documents found in 2007 by Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi. The surviving sex slaves wanted an apology from the Japanese government. Abe Hiroshi, the prime minister at the time, stated that there is no evidence that the Japanese government instituted a brutal sex slave industry. His statement was proved incorrect in 2006.

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. This is often regarded as the trigger of the on-going controversy over comfort women in Japan. In this series the Asahi Shimbun repeatedly published excerpts of his book. Consequently, it was regarded as evidence of "forced comfort women" and cited in the U.N. report by Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy.

But some people doubted Yoshida's "confession" 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.

Initial government response and litigation

Initially the Japanese government denied any official connection to the wartime brothels; in June 1990, the Japanese government declared 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.

Kono statement

However, in 1991, the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered incriminating documents in the archives of Japan's Defense Agency. According to Yoshimi they indicated that the military was directly involved in running the brothels, for example by selecting the recruiting agents. The Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese national daily, published these findings as a front-page article "Japanese Army abducted comfort women" on 11 January 1992. This caused a sensation and forced the government, represented by Chief Cabinet Secretary, Koichi Kato, to acknowledge some of the facts the same day. 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 of the Japanese government, issued a statement on 4 August 1993. By this statement the Japanese government recognized that "Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military of the day", that "The Japanese military was directly or indirectly involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of the women", "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 and remorse to all those, irrespective of place of origin, who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable psychological wounds". In the statement, the government of Japan expressed its "firm determination never to repeat the same mistake and that they would engrave such issue through the study and teaching of history".

Although this statement gave the pretense of being an apology, it was very carefully worded, thus admitting an unspecified role in the military brothels, yet rejecting legal responsibility for them. Japan continues to contend the brothels were not a "system" and not a war crime nor crime against humanity.

Asia Women's Fund

In 1995, Japan set up an "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." The fund is funded by private donations and not government money, and has been criticized as a way to avoid admitting government abuse. But because of the unofficial nature of the fund, many comfort women have rejected these payments and continue to seek an official apology and compensation.

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, 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's comfort women program 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.
  • Enslavement and other inhumane acts committed by the Japanese government can be considered “crimes against humanity.” In crimes against humanity, the nationality of the victim is irrelevant thus, (it doesn’t matter if the Japanese government was committing crimes against its enemies’ citizens or its own) it is liable for these offenses.
  • The Japanese government is liable for crimes against humanity because of the considerable scale on which these crimes were committed.
  • Arguments that the enslaving and raping of comfort women was perfectly legal at the time is similar to an argument that was used and refuted at the Nuremberg Trials.

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."

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." Before he spoke, a group of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers also sought to revise Yohei Kono's 1993 apology to former comfort women. 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. 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.

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." , 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".

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.

Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun stated that commfort women were not treated as "paramilitary personnel", unlike military nurses. The article says, during the war, Comfort women were not called military comfort women (従軍慰安婦, jūgun-ianfu). and the use of the term spread in the post-war time. 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.

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

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'." Honda has stated that "the purpose of this resolution is not to bash or humiliate Japan." However, the Japanese embassy in the U.S. stated that the Resolution was erroneous in terms of the facts and that it would be harmful to the friendship between the US and Japan.

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. 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."

Dutch Parliament resolution

The lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a motion unanimously on November 20,2007, urging Japan to financially compensate the women forced into sex slavery during World War II.

"This should send a strong and clear signal to the Japanese government and the Japanese people, that so many years after World War II, people in the Netherlands still want the Japanese to recognize the war crimes of the past and to recognize the victims," said van Baalen, who tabled the motion. "It is a matter still taken seriously in the Netherlands," he said.

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.

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.

Revisionists and other deniers

This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced. (March 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

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 warcrimes committed by Japan including the abuse of comfort women. These Japanese historians argue 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..

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). Hata writes that none of the comfort women were forcibly recruited.

The proportion of countries of origin of the women is also in dispute.

One argument revisionists use to oppose the mainstream conclusions about the abuse of comfort women is to question the credibility of testimony given by former comfort women. Some Japanese politicians have argued that the former comfort women's testimony is inconsistent and unreliable; making it invalid.

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

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html
  2. "Comfort-Women.org FAQ". Comfort-women.org. 2004. Retrieved 2007-10-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. FACTBOX-Disputes over Japan's wartime "comfort women" continue, Reuters, March 5, 2007, retrieved 2008-05-20 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. 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. pp. 100–101, 105–106, 110–111. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
    Fackler, Martin (2007-03-06). "No Apology for Sex Slavery, Japan's Prime Minister Says". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  5. "Abe questions sex slave 'coercion'". BBC News. 2007-03-02. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. "Japan party probes sex slave use". BBC News. 2007-03-08. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. Minister van Buitenlandse zaken (January 24 1994). "Gedwongen prostitutie van Nederlandse vrouwen in voormalig Nederlands-Indië ". Handelingen Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal . 23607 (1): 6–9, 11, 13–14. ISSN 0921-7371. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysource= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Onishi, Norimitsu (2007-03-08). "Denial Reopens Wounds of Japan's Ex-Sex Slaves". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  9. George Hicks, "The Comfort Women". Allen & Unwin ISBN 1863737278
  10. ^ The "Comfort Women" Issue and the Asian Women's Fund (PDF), Asian Women's Fund, p. 10
  11. 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. pp. 100–101, 105–106, 110–111. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
    Hicks, George (1997) . The Comfort Women. Japans Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 66–67, 119, 131, 142–143. ISBN 0-393-31694-7. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  12. Reiji Yoshida (April 18, 2007). "Evidence documenting sex-slave coercion revealed". Japan Times. Retrieved 2007-08-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. "Files: Females forced into sexual servitude in wartime Indonesia". Japan Times. 12 May, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. 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. pp. 82–83. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
    Hicks, George (1997) . The Comfort Women. Japans Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 223–228. ISBN 0-393-31694-7. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  15. International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1948-11-01). "Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East" (HTML). Hyperwar, a hypertext history of the Second World War. Hyperwar Foundation. pp. p. 1135. They recruited women labour on the pretext of establishing factories. They forced the women thus recruited into prostitution with Japanese troops. {{cite web}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  16. "Report No. 49: Japanese POW Interrogation on Prostitution". Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  17. Fujiwara, Akira (藤原彰) The Three Alls Policy and the Northern Chinese Regional Army (「三光作戦」と北支那方面軍), Kikan sensô sekinin kenkyû 20, 1998
  18. Himeta, Mitsuyoshi (姫田光義) Concerning the Three Alls Strategy/Three Alls Policy By the Japanese Forces (日本軍による『三光政策・三光作戦をめぐって』), Iwanami Bukkuretto, 1996
  19. Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, HarperCollins, 2000. ISBN 0-06-019314-X
  20. Bae Ji-sook, "202 Pro-Japanese Collaborators Disclosed", The Korea Times, 09-17-2007.
  21. Template:Ja icon "宋秉畯ら第２期親日反民族行為者２０２人を選定", JoongAng Ilbo, 2007.09.17. "日本軍慰安婦を募集したことで悪名高いベ・ジョンジャ"
  22. Burning of Confidential Documents by Japanese Government, case no.43, serial 2, International Prosecution Section vol. 8;
    International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1948-11-01). "Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East" (HTML). Hyperwar, a hypertext history of the Second World War. Hyperwar Foundation. pp. p. 1135. When it became apparent that Japan would be forced to surrender, an organized effort was made to burn or otherwise destroy all documents and other evidence of ill-treatment of prisoners of war and civilian internees. The Japanese Minister of War issued an order on 14 August 1945 to all Army headquarters that confidential documents should be destroyed by fire immediately. On the same day, the Commandant of the Kempetai sent out instructions to the various Kempetai Headquarters detailing the methods of burning large quantities of documents efficiently. {{cite web}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
    Yoshimi, Yoshiaki (2000) . Comfort Women. Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II. Asia Perspectives. translation Suzanne O'Brien. New York: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup Columbia University Press]. p. 91. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. , the actual number of comfort women remains unclear because the Japanese army incinerated many crucial documents right after the defeat for fear of war crimes prosecution, {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
    Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 2001, ISBN 006019314X, p.528;
    Drea, Edward (2006) . Researching Japanese War Crimes Records. Introductory Essays (pdf). Washington DC: Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group. p. 9. ISBN 1-880875-28-4. Retrieved 2007-08-06. Between the announcement of a ceasefire on August 15, 1945, and the arrival of small advance parties of American troops in Japan on August 28, Japanese military and civil authorities systematically destroyed military, naval, and government archives, much of which was from the period 1942–1945. Imperial General Headquarters in Tokyo dispatched enciphered messages to field commands throughout the Pacific and East Asia ordering units to burn incriminating evidence of war crimes, especially offenses against prisoners of war. The director of Japan's Military History Archives of the National Institute for Defense Studies estimated in 2003 that as much as 70 percent of the army's wartime records were burned or otherwise destroyed. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  23. Nakamura, Akemi (2007-03-20). "Were they teen-rape slaves or paid pros?". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  24. "Japan court rules against 'comfort women'". Reuters. 2001-03-29. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  25. * BBC article "An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 women across Asia, predominantly Korean and Chinese, are believed to have been forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese military brothels"
    • Mainichi Daily News article "Historians say thousands of women -- as many as 200,000 by some accounts -- mostly from Korea, China and Japan worked in the Japanese military brothels"
    • University of Carolina publication: "A majority of the 80,000 to 200,000 comfort women were from Korea, though others were recruited or recruited from China, the Philippines, Burma, and Indonesia. Some Japanese women who worked as prostitutes before the war also became comfort women."
    • A Public Betrayed "Approximately 80 percent of the sex slaves were Korean;"
    • Japan Policy Research Institute publication "Estimates of the number of comfort women range between 50,000 and 200,000. It is believed that most were Korean."
  26. However, according to Kanto Gakuin University professor Hirofumi Hayashi, the majority of the women were from Japan, Korea, and China. Japan's Responsibility Toward Comfort Women Survivors History News Network ZNet 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. See Yoshimi, Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military during World War II, Columbia University press, 2002. Nihon University professor Ikuhiko Hata estimated the number of women working in the licensed pleasure quarter was fewer than 20,000. They were 40% Japanese, 20% Koreans, 10% Chinese, with others making up the remaining 30%. 200,000 might be an overestimation because the total number of government-regulated prostitutes was 170,000 in Japan during the WW2. See Hata, Ikuhiko, Ianfu to senjo no sei (Comfort women and the sex in the battlefield) Shinchosha, ISBN 4106005654 (in Japanese)
  27. ^ Soh, Sarah (2001-05-01). "Japan's Responsibility Toward Comfort Women Survivors". Japan Policy Research Institute. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  28. Comfort Women Were 'Raped': U.S. Ambassador to Japan
  29. Abe ignores evidence, say Australia's 'comfort women'
  30. ^ "Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the result of the study on the issue of "comfort women"". 1993-08-04. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  31. Associated Press (6 July, 2007). "Memoir of comfort woman tells of 'hell for women'". China Daily. Retrieved 2007-08-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  32. "７３１部隊「コレラ作戦」" (in Japanese). Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  33. ^ Tabuchi, Hiroko (2007-03-01). "Japan's Abe: No Proof of WWII Sex Slaves". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  34. ^ "Statement of Jan Ruff O'Herne AO, Subcommittee on Asia, Pacific and the Global Environment, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives". Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  35. ^ "日本占領下インドネシアにおける慰安婦" (PDF) (in Japanese). Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  36. nishimura-voice.up.seesaa.net (JPG Image)
  37. Keiji Hirano (April 28, 2007). "East Timor former sex slaves start speaking out". Japan Times. Retrieved 2007-08-29. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  38. ^ Hank Nelson. "The Consolation Unit: Comfort Women at Rabaul" (pdf). The Australian National University. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
  39. 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. p. 91. ISBN 0-231-12033-8. {{cite book}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  40. International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1948-11-01). "Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East" (HTML). Hyperwar, a hypertext history of the Second World War. Hyperwar Foundation. pp. 1135–1136. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  41. Evidence documenting sex-slave coercion revealed
  42. "Lawsuits against the Government of Japan filed by the survivors in Japanese Courts". Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  43. Yoshimi, ibid.
  44. "History of Comfort Women by the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues". Retrieved 2008-05-28.
  45. "Letter from Prime Minister to the former comfort women, since 1996". Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  46. ^ "Ex - Japanese PM Denies Setting Up Brothel". The Associated Press. 2007-03-23. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  47. Honda, Mike. "Honda Testifies in Support of Comfort Women". Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  48. ^ Gay J. McDougall. "Report of the Special Rapporteur on systematic rape" (HTML). Retrieved 2007-11-12.
  49. "Don't misinterpret comfort women issue". The Yomiuri Shimbun. 2007-03-07. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  50. "No Comfort". The New York Times. 2007-03-06. Retrieved 2007-03-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  51. U.S. got Abe to drop denial over sex slaves
  52. Template:Vitation
  53. 'Comfort women' distortion stirs indignation, July 13, 2005, retrieved 2008-05-20 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  54. WWII sex slaves want Japan to wake up, by Irene Lin, TAIPEI TIMES, December 18, 2000
  55. ^ DEBITO.ORG NEWSLETTER MAR 3, 2007
  56. ^ Comfort Women or Sex Slaves?,Blogcritics Magazine; original link
  57. ^ The Horrible History of the "Comfort Women" and the Fight to Suppress Their Story, History News Network
  58. "H. Res. 121: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Government of Japan should formally..." Retrieved 2007-03-23.
  59. ""Comfort Women" Resolution Likely to Pass U.S. Congress". The Chosun Ilbo. 2007-02-02. Retrieved 2007-03-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  60. us.emb-japan.go.jp
  61. ^ Epstein, Edward (2007-07-31). "House wants Japan apology". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-08-01. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  62. Xinhua News
  63. MPs Moved to Tears by Comfort Women - Embassy - Newspaper Online
  64. Wire Reports. "Canada urges Japan to apologize to WWII sex slaves" (html). Japan Today News. japantoday.com. Retrieved 2007-11-28.
  65. AFP: Canada MPs demand Japan apologize to WWII 'comfort women'
  66. European Parliament speaks out on sexual slavery during WWII
  67. Kyodo News - Story
  68. theparliament.com - EU passes resolution on Japanese-enslaved ‘comfort women’
  69. Europees Parlement - Actueel - Persdienst - Info - Human rights: Chad, women's rights in Saudi Arabia, Japan's wartime sex slaves
  70. "Cartoon of Wartime 'Comfort Women' Irks Taiwan". The New York Times. March 2, 2001.
  71. Ikuhiko Hata. "No Organized or Forced Recruitment: Misconceptions about Comfort Women and the Japanese Military" (pdf). pp. on pg.16 of 17. Retrieved 2007-11-10. None of them was forcibly recruited.
  72. "The Facts" (jpg). Retrieved 2007-11-02. Their testimonies have undergone dramatic changes...
  73. Lisa Yoneyama (2002). "NHK's Censorship of Japanese Crimes Against Humanity". Harvard Asia Quarterly. Retrieved 2007-11-02. However, the second night's programming on January 30 was heavily censored through deletion, interpolations, alterations, dismemberment and even fabrication. This segment was originally supposed to cover the "Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery" that had been held in Tokyo in December 2000. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Hicks, George L. The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, 1997. ISBN 0-393-31694-7.
  • 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:

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.

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