Comfort women
Comfort women (Japanese: 慰安婦, ianfu) or military comfort women (Japanese: 従"慰安婦, jūgun-ianfu)[1] is a euphemism for women who provided (or were forced to provide) sex in military brothels in Japanese-occupied countries during World War II. There are different theories on the breakdown of the comfort women's place of origin. According to Kanto Gakuin University professor Hirofumi Hayashi, the majority of the women were from Japan, Korea, and China. Others came from the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Dutch East Indies, and other Japanese-occupied countries and regions.
According to Chuo University professor Yoshiaki Yoshimi, there were about 2,000 centers where as many as 200,000 Korean, Filipino, Taiwanese, Burmese, Indonesian, Dutch, Australian and some Japanese women were forced to engage in sexual activity with Imperial military personnel.
However, for Nihon University professor Ikuhiko Hata, linked to the negationnist society Tsukurukai, the women working in the licensed pleasure quarter were 40% Japanese, 20% Koreans, 10% Chinese, with others making up the remaining 30%.
Estimates of the number of comfort women during the war range from 80,000 to 200,000, with testimony by surviving comfort women suggesting a number at the higher end of the scale. Most of the brothels where comfort women served were located in Japanese military bases.
The Japanese government does not fully recognize allegations of large scale forced prostitution and, as such, does not additionally compensate the participants beyond what they earned during their period of service (As for the salary that a Japanese army had paid them, the half was deprived by their "master".). However, the Japanese government has repeatedly offered verbal "expressions of regret" for any wounds they have caused, written apology; and it has established the private Asian Women's Fund.
Brothels as part of Japanese military policy
Historical research into Japanese government records documents several reasons given for the establishment of military brothels. First, Japanese authorities hoped that by providing easily accessible prostitutes and sexual slaves, the morale and ultimately the military effectiveness of Japanese soldiers would be improved. Second, by institutionalizing brothels and placing them under official scrutiny, the government hoped to control the spread of STDs. Lastly, creating brothels in military bases directly on the front line removed the perceived need to grant leave to soldiers.
In the early stages of the war, Japanese authorities recruited prostitutes through conventional means. Middlemen advertised for prostitutes in newspapers circulating in Japan and the Japanese colonies of Korea, Taiwan, Manchukuo, and mainland China. Many who answered the advertisements were already prostitutes and offered their services voluntarily. Others were sold by their families to the military due to economic hardship. However, these sources soon dried up, especially from 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, especially from Korea and occupied China. Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels.
The military also sought comfort women from local sources. 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. 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. 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.
It is also claimed that beatings and physical torture were not uncommon. A single woman could expect to have sex a dozen to forty times a day, often resulting in injury to the genitals. Women were divided into three or four categories, depending on their length of service. The "freshest" women were the least likely to suffer from STDs and were placed in the highest category. Virgins were usually given to officers for first sex. As time went on, the comfort women were downgraded as the likelihood of their acquiring STDs became more certain. Any others who were suspected with pregnancy were forced to undergo crude methods of abortion, more often than not killing the women through over-bleeding during surgical removals. When they were considered likely to be too diseased to be of any further use, they were abandoned, often far from home, or even in a different country, as the comfort women were shipped wherever deemed necessary. Sometimes to conceal the existence of their use of comfort women, retreating Japanese battalions would stash these women in secret caves and blast the entrance, causing landslides that sealed the cave. Many women reported having their uteruses rot from the diseases acquired from being raped by thousands of men over several years, at times requiring surgical removal.
Responsibility and compensation
Japan regards all World War II compensation claims to be settled.
Both South Korea and Japan mutually confirm that all claims between the countries and their people have been settled completely and finally by the Treaty on Basic Relations and Agreement of Economic Cooperation and Property Claims between Japan and the Republic of Korea in 1965. Both countries confirmed that the treaty includes all claims from South Korea on a government to government basis, but private or corporate compensations are still not settled. The female victims more than anything would like an official apology by the Japanese government. Many women have declined offers of money for compensation and would prefer acknowledgement of their ordeal.
Despite this, in 1990, the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery filed suit, demanding official apologies and crimes against humanity compensation. Several surviving comfort women also independently filed suit in the Tokyo District Court. More suits followed in the ensuing years. It was widely expected that the court would reject all of these claims on the basis of the statutes of limitation or on the basis that the state is immune from civil suits in court on the matter of war time conduct. However, these suits have helped to revive and sustain the issue of comfort women in Japan as well as in the international media.
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. However, in 1992, the historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki discovered incriminating documents in the archives of Japan's Defense Agency indicating that the military was directly involved in running the brothels (by, for example, selecting the agents who recruited). [8] When Yoshimi's findings were published in the Japanese media on January 12, 1993, they caused a sensation and forced the governement, represented by Chief Cabinet Secretary, Kato Koichi, to acknowledge some of the facts the same day. On January 17, Prime minister Kiichi Miyazawa presented formal apologies for the suffering of the victims during a trip to South Korea. On July 6 and August 4, the Japanese governments issued two statements by which it 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 establishement and management of the comfort stations and the transfert of the women" and that the women "were recruited in many cases against their own will through coaxing and coercion". Since then, Japan's official position has been one of admitting "moral but not legal" responsibility.
Following official admission of a military connection to the brothels in 1992, the debate has shifted to consideration of evidence and testimony of coercive recruitment of comfort women during the war. In a number of mock trials (without cross-examination), surviving women have testified of being subjected to coercion and rape. 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 an unofficial signed apology from the prime minister. 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.
However, on 17 January 2005, additional documents detailing the minutes of Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea were released by South Korean government. They suggest that the South Korean government agreed not to demand further compensation, either at the government or individual level against the Japanese government, after receiving $800 million in grants and soft loans from Japan as compensation for its 1910-1945 occupation, and to take all responsibility for individual cases in place of the Japanese government. This further reduces the likelihood of legal proceedings resulting in any formal admission of responsibility.
Clearly time is on the side of the Japanese government. The number of surviving comfort women has dwindled from many thousands to a mere handful, all of whom will have died in another few years.
References
See also [ Military role play ]
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