Mistreatment of Comfort Women Under Imperial Japanese Army Rule

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This photo, posted on August 24, 2016, is a comfort women statue situated outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea to serve as a reminder of the mistakes and issues of the past.

Comfort Women were women from many parts of East Asia forcefully taken by the Imperial Japanese Army to provide sexual services at brothels for soldiers during World War II. Young girls were taken from their homes in countries under Japanese rule, mostly from China and Korea, and the rest from Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia [1].

Overview

History

Although military brothels existed in the Japanese military since 1932, one of the most infamous incidents during imperial Japan's attempt to invade and colonize China further established the roots of sexual services in the Japanese army. On December 13, 1937 was the Rape of Nanking, in which Japanese troops began a six-week-long massacre destroying the city of Nanking in China while having Japanese officers rape between 20,000 to 80,000 Chinese women [2]. As this image of mass rape began to spread and impact Japan's global image, Emperor Hirohito ordered the military to create "comfort stations" in efforts to prevent further staining Japan's image [3], reduce sexually transmitted diseases and isolate a controlled group of sexual slaves to satisfy Japanese soldiers.

Fortunately, after the Japanese were defeated in 1945, many of these comfort women were rescued and sent home by Allied Forces. However, American men were still in use of the comfort stations until they were ultimately shut down in 1946 by five-star General Douglas MacArthur.

Origin Countries

From 1938-1945, there were 360,000 to 410,000 comfort women in territories occupied by the Japanese [4], with China holding the largest number of comfort women at about 200,000. According to BBC, the majority of women abducted were predominantly from Korea and China [5]. Bruce Cumings, a historian of Korea, wrote that between 100,000 and 200,000 Korean girls and women were recruited by the Japanese Army, with the help of Korean men [6]. Many women were also taken by false promises of higher paying jobs, educational opportunities, and to travel abroad. In Korea, daughters of wealthy families and the bureaucracy were spared from being taken to comfort stations; consequently, the overwhelming majority of Korean girls and women taken came from poor families [7]. The Korean Army and Navy also worked together with contractors to create organized crime groups in human trafficking to pay based on the girls they presented.

Comfort Stations

Within the walls of these so-called "comfort stations", the brothel was ran and managed by the "house master", in which the manager of each station would receive fifty to sixty percent of the women's earnings. On average, a woman would work for about fifteen hundred Japanese Yen (today's equivalent of $19.00 CAD), with about seven hundred fifty yen handed to the manager. Although these managers were instructed by military authorities to hand out the required sharing of earnings, these "masters" took advantage of the women's lack of education and their naivety, and gave them as little information as possible [2]. When these women queried the matter, they were often dismissed with excuses of their owing debt to the manager.

Violence

Japanese officers were allowed to visit comfort stations whenever they desired which led to these women working continuously without rest. Each comfort woman was required to serve anywhere from five to sixty men a day for years, causing many women to experience physical pain and develop health problems [2]. When these women resisted, they were often tortured and in some cases, maimed or killed [2]. Mun P’ilgi, a Korean woman taken to a comfort station, testified that many men inflicted violence whenever their requests were refused, causing many women to suffer incurable physical and psychological wounds. Moreover, this caused many women to painful experiences from sexually transmitted diseases, aggressive treatment of these diseases, starvation, physical abuse, torture, threats of death, forced abortion and sterilization [8]. When the war was over, the surviving comfort women had to live the rest of their lives enduring the incurable wounds, as well as the social stigma[1]. In post-war decades, the "comfort women" issue were hidden by most of the survivors.[1]

Medical Concerns

The Japanese Army and Navy supplied large amounts of medical supplies to prevent venereal diseases [2]. Although large amounts of condoms were handed out for free as a requirement for service in comfort stations, many Japanese soldiers, mostly Generals, chose not to wear condoms. These women were often injected with arsphenamine , which combining with damages done to the vagina caused by rape or over-usage were the main cause of many women becoming sterile. However, as tensions grew between Japan and the U.S., many Japanese supply and merchant ships were sunken by American submarines, causing major shortages in medical supplies [7]. As a result, medical supplies were mainly reserved for Japanese servicemen and condoms used in comfort stations were washed and reused, reducing their effectiveness.

Government Response

Denial

Although the Japanese government has acknowledged the existence of comfort women and stations, the Japanese government has consistently denied responsibility and compensations. Former Osaka city mayor, Toru Hashimoto, comments that while historically many countries and their militaries have sexually exploited women, only the Japanese government is held accountable for their actions. Moreover, he argues that sexual activities within the entertainment industries today are legally accepted; thus, rejecting the sex industry is merely discriminating and marginalizing against women who voluntarily work in these sectors.

In 2013, Japan was recently reviewed by the Committee against Torture (CAT) and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR). Both human rights bodies expressed concerns regarding the lack of cooperation and responsibility from Japan on this issue. The CAT demands Japan to provide reconciliation, assistance, and rehabilitation for victims of the degrading treatment and torture [9].

Reconciliation and Apologies

As the issue of "comfort women" was erased during post-war years, a Korean former "comfort woman" broke the silence in 1991 and spoke publicly about her experiences, seeking a formal apology and a reparation package from the Japanese government [10]. Through her actions, hundreds of other women in Korea came forward with their testimonies [1]. In 1993, Japan's government finally acknowledged these atrocities; however, the issue has remain divisive in Japan [3]. In 1994, the Japanese government set up the Asian Women's Fund (AWF) to allocate additional compensation to South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Netherlands, and Indonesia.

Later in 2007, surviving comfort women demanded an apology from the Japanese government. The Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, stated that there wasn't sufficient evidence to claim that the Japanese army had kept sex slaves, despite past apologies in 1993 of admitting to the use of coercion. Following on March 27, 2007, the Japanese parliament issued an official apology.

On December 28, 2015, former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe acquired a formal agreement to settle these issues. Abe publicly expressed formal apologies to all the women who have experienced immeasurable, and painful treatment and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds. In terms of reparations and compensations, Japan agreed to pay one billion Japanese Yen (today's equivalent of $12,663,708.20 CAD) to a fund supporting surviving comfort women as South Korea has agreed to hold back on criticizing Japan on this issue.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lee, Jeewon; Kwak, Young-Sook; Kim, Yoon-Jung (April 2018). "Psychiatric Sequelae of Former "Comfort Women," Survivors of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery during World War II". Psychiatry Investigation. 15: 336–343.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Tanaka, Yuki (2002). JAPAN'S COMFORT WOMEN: Sexual slavery and prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation. London and New York: Routledge. pp. 9–95. ISBN 0-203-34456-1.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Blakemore, Erin (20 February 2018). "The Brutal History of Japan's 'Comfort Women'". HISTORY.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ "Sex slaves put Japan on trial". BBC News. 8 December 2000.
  6. ↑ Cumings, Bruce (1997). Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (First ed.). New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 155. ISBN 978-0393316810.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Hicks, George (1996). The Japanese Wartime Empire, 1931-1945. Princeton University press. pp. 305–323. ISBN 9780691043821.
  8. ↑ de Brouwer, Anne-Marie L.M. (2005). Supranational Criminal Prosecution of Sexual Violence: The ICC and the Practice of the ICTY and the ICTR. Oxford: Intersentia. ISBN 90-5095-533-9.
  9. ↑ "'Comfort Women'" Japan Still in Denial". Women's International League for Peace & Freedom.
  10. ↑ Joo, Hee-Jung Serenity (2015). "Comfort Women in Human Rights Discourse: Fetishized Testimonies, Small Museums, and the Politics of Thin Description". Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. 37: 166–183.
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