Comfort Women

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Washington Post in April 17, 2007

History of Japanese Military's Comfort Women

According to several documents, Japanese army built a comfort house in Shanghai in order to prevent soldiers’ frequent rape of civilians. However, according to a testimony that ‘the Army’s comfort house used the navy’s comfort house as a model’, we know that a comfort house by the Japanese Navy was already built in Shanghai before March of 1932. Around 1932, comfort houses were built around occupied territories and their quality changed at the end of 1937. These places lasted until the end of the war. As there became more occupied territories, and the war was extended into a longer period of time, Japanese navy and army started an organized policy to manage the comfort houses. At first, the policy was at an expeditionary army’s level, but it became more organized and eventually became a policy of the army’s headquarters.

In 1937, as the China-Japan war intensified, the Japanese military began building more comfort houses. After the Shanghai accident was over and Nanjing was occupied by the Japanese, comfort houses were built and maintained by the military’s line of command. During this period of time, the Japanese military and police were involved in the systematic draft of comfort women. Women were abducted by the Japanese military all around Chosun (old Korea), China, Japan, Taiwan and other countries.

By the end of 1938, more than 70 comfort houses were built around China, and there were more than 1000 comfort women. Most of these comfort women were from Chosun. A secret document, “Chosun counter plan” which was written after Japan started the China-Japan war in July 1937, has a clause saying that “Unmarried women in Chosun shall be used to supply the military’s special business” along with a clause to take men from Chosun to Japan to make them work in mines and armor factories. It was a system that the Japanese military was leading and the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japanese government organizations and the government general were actively collaborating on.

In July 1941, Japan made a plan to recruit 20,000 comfort women from Chosun, and put the plan into action. As a result, along with the help from the government general, Japanese military abducted about 8,000 women from Chosun and sent them to North-eastern China. The abductors used various methods. One popular way was to promise a woman a job that didn’t exist. Once she agreed to go along, she would be put to work in a comfort house.

In December 1941, as the war expanded to the Pacific War, the establishment of comfort houses increased. It is not an exaggeration to say that at every single battle field, there was at least one comfort house.

In January 1943, there were about 100 comfort houses in Northern China, about 140 comfort houses in central China, about 40 comfort houses in Southern China, about 100 comfort houses in South eastern Asia, about 10 comfort houses in the southern sea, about 10 comfort houses in Saghalien, totaling to about 400 comfort houses. Every army division had about 5 to 6 comfort houses, and the comfort women at those stations were usually from Chosun or Japan. As the war expanded, it was impossible for the military to recruit enough Japanese prostitutes and regular women from Chosun so they started to abduct girls from Chosun using numerous methods and made them as sex-slaves.

In 1942, a large number of women from Chosun were sent to the southern regions. In 1943, according to documents by the Japanese Military, there were 20 comfort houses in Juk-jung lee, and in 11 of the houses, most of the comfort women were 18 to 19 year old girls who had no previous experience in prostitution.

By the end of 1943, because it had become harder to mobilize goods and manpower, it was impossible to build comfort houses using private companies. Japanese military started building more comfort houses around Okinawa and Indonesia, and the number of comfort women recruitment increased. On top of recruitment from Chosun, Japanese military also abducted women from occupied territories.

Japanese Army's Comfort Women...

'Comfort Women' are the women who were abducted by the Japanese military and raped during Japan’s colonization of Korea. In Korean, we call them “Jung Sin Dae.” “Jung Sin Dae” was a noun that described organizations that specifically provided manpower in order to strengthen Japan’s military under imperialism during the war. However, by the end of the pacific war in 1943, people tended to limit its use to indicate comfort women, and finally in August 1944, government issued “Female Jung Sin Dae Labor Statement.” Ever since, “Jung Sin Dae” was only used to indicate females who were mobilized during the war.

Comfort women who were organized under “Female Comfort Women Labor Statement” were organized to supplement labor due to the loss in labor during the war. Therefore, female labor Jung Sin Dae and Japanese military’s comfort women were fundamentally different. Japanese government institutionalized comfort houses during the China and Japan war and the Pacific War. Comfort houses were a place where comfort women were confined and military troops came in groups in order to gratify their lust. The Japanese Military abducted countless women and sent them to the front line, and systematically forced them into sex slavery. The abducted women were stationed at different comfort houses, and repeatedly raped. They used to be called “Jong-goon we ahn boo’ (從軍慰安婦). However, that word assumes a voluntary action rather than a forced action; therefore it is not an appropriate expression. Internationally,

expressions such as“sex-slaves”and“rape victims” are used, and those are the words that most appropriately convey the essence of the nature. We currently address them as“Japanese Military’s We Ahn Boo(comfort women).”The word‘Jung Sin Dae’which is presently familiar to the general crowd via mass media means a military unit that sacrificed their bodies for the country. The word,“Jung Shin Dae”, used to be used with the same meaning as“Japanese Military’s We Ahn Boo”, and started to appear on newspapers in 1940s. During this period of time,“Jung Shin Dae”meant women who were working at factories that made products that were military-related. A lot of women who used to work at factories were abducted by Japanese military and used as comfort women, and that is why the word“Jung Shin Dae”was used to mean comfort women. However,“Jung Shin Dae”is necessarily not the same word as comfort women. We estimate that about 200,000 Korean women were abducted by the Japanese military as comfort women. Most of them died, and there are only 158 comfort women who have identified themselves as comfort women to the Korean government since 1992. Of these, about forty women died, and the comfort women who are still alive, including ones that are not included in the government’s statistics, total about one hundred forty one. Nine of them currently live in the House of Sharing, which is a registered social welfare organization.

From : http://www.nanum.org/eng/menu02/index.html