Human slavery

Japanese sex slavery before,
during and after World War II

Sponsored link.

Quotations:

"I was playing jump-rope in front of my house when an automobile pulled over. I had never seen a car before in my village. When the driver offered me a ride, I, curious and naive, climbed in with my friend. Immediately, that car rolled on with us in it and then kept on going and going, never returning me to my village...." Ms. Kim Yoon Shim, a former "comfort woman," about her abduction at the age of 14." 1

"Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana.

Overview:

Any imbalance in power makes physical and sexual assault more probable. This is particularly true in the widespread incidences of rape during wartime.

An estimated one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand female sex slaves were forced to deliver sexual services to Japanese soldiers, both before and during World War II. They have been variously called "comfort women," "military sex slaves," "MSS," "military comfort women," and -- in Japanese -- "jugun ianfu." This program was approved by the Imperial Conference, which was composed of the emperor, representatives from the armed forces and the main Cabinet ministers. The conference was formed after Japan invaded Manchuria in 1937.

A book reviewer for Amazon.com stated:

"This system resulted in the largest, most methodical and most deadly mass rape of women in recorded history. Japan's Kem pei tai political police and their collaborators tricked or abducted females as young as eleven years old and imprisoned them in military rape camps known as 'comfort stations,' situated throughout Asia. These 'comfort women' were forced to service as many as fifty Japanese soldiers a day. They were often beaten, starved, and made to endure abortions or injections with sterilizing drugs. Only a few of the women survived, and those that did suffered permanent physical and emotional damage." ₂

In terms of the actual numbers of rapes, the Amazon.com reviewer is probably correct. This atrocity by the Japanese government probably represents the largest organized mass rape in recorded history. Rapes probably numbered in excess of ten million. However, in terms of the numbers of women raped, there was at least one other wartime event which involved more women: the rape of German, Polish and even Russian women by Russian soldiers during the final months of World War II in Europe. Hopefully, the new permanent International Criminal Court will give future women victims an opportunity to initiate lawsuits against their attackers and obtain justice.

Many comfort women died without being repatriated. "They were simply discarded when they got too sick to be of any use. During the last months of WWII, most Comfort Women were murdered or left to die by retreating Japanese troops." ₁ Most of the survivors are now probably approaching -- or have reached -- 80 years of age. They will probably all die without hearing an official apology or receiving compensation for their ordeal, from the Government of Japan.

About the "comfort women:"

The first "comfort houses" were established approximately 1932-MAR during the battle of Shanghai. Following the second Sino-Japanese war of 1937, these houses were installed generally in occupied lands. Approximately 80 to 90% of the "comfort women" came from Korea which was occupied by the Japanese military at the time. Many of the rest were Chinese. ₃ Some other Asian and Dutch women from countries that Japan had invaded were also enslaved . There were rumors about this form of slavery after the war. It was not until 1991 that a South Korean woman, Grandma Kim Hak Soon, became the first person to speak publicly about the existence of comfort women. It has since became public knowledge as other victim survivors have come forward and as groups have been founded to demand justice for these women.

One source suggests that the Japanese government organized the comfort stations for a number of reasons:

	To increase the morale of the troops.
	To prevent their soldiers from raping women in the territories that they controlled.
	To more efficiently prevent the spread of STDs.
	To prevent leakage of military secrets.

1990: Response by the Japanese Government:

In 1990, amid rumors of sexual slavery by the Armed Forces before and during World War II, a Japanese official spoke at a session of the Japanese Diet. He denied any governmental involvement with the recruitment of comfort women. This triggered the founding of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan in 1990-NOV. The Council sent an open letter to Kaifu Toshiki, the Prime Minister  of Japan. They demanded that the government take six actions:

1. The Japanese government admit the forced draft of Korean women as comfort women.
2. The Japanese Government issue an public apology.
3. That all barbarities be fully disclosed.
4. That a memorial be created for the victims.
5. That the survivors or their bereaved families be compensated.
6. That these facts be continuously related in historical education classes so that history would not be repeated. ₄

In 1991-APR, the Japanese Government responded that there was no evidence of any forced draft of Korean women. Thus they would initiate no admission of responsibility, apologies, disclosure, memorial, compensation and educational effort. In 1991-AUG, the first of many comfort woman, went public with her story.

In 1992-JAN, Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a Japanese history professor, went public with documents that he had obtained from the Library of the National Institute for Defense. This forced a government investigation. In its 1992-JUL report "Results of Investigation into the Question of 'Military Comfort Women' Originating from the Korean Peninsula," the Japanese Government finally admitted that a wide-spread wartime organization of comfort stations existed. Finally, in a supplementary report issued in 1993-AUG, "The Japanese government admitted deception, coercion and official involvement in the recruitment of comfort women..." ₅

Filmmaker and activist Dai Sil Kim Gibson commented: "Japan is ultimately responsible for redressing the crimes it has committed. Japan will not have discharged fully its obligations under international law until it admits its legal liability, pays official compensation and prosecutes the offenders. Japan has taken some steps to apologize but none accompanied by an official acknowledgement that what it did to these women were crimes against humanity, war crimes." ₆ 

As of 2001-DEC, the Japanese Government has not given a full apology to these women, nor has it offered compensation to the victims. They have taken one minor step: they arranged with a private charitable organization to pay limited amounts of money to the survivors. The fund expires at the end of 2007-MAR. ₁₁ In 2000-OCT, the Democratic Party, the Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party of Japan jointly sponsored a bill in the Japanese Diet to support the comfort women. It died in 2000-DEC.

The policy of the Japanese government appears to be to refuse to recognize their responsibility for these crimes, and to stonewall all requests for justice. As of 2002, most of the comfort women are now in their 70's or early 80's. We suspect that the Japanese government hopes that when their victims die, memories of the atrocity will dissipate.

Involvement by Western governments:

The Netherlands prosecuted some of the soldiers who had captured 35 Dutch women during World War II when the Japanese Army overran Dutch colonies in Asia. Those responsible were sentenced to prison. ₄

The Korean Government ignored the sex-slavery issue in 1965 when it negotiated a treaty with Japan which settled other grievances due to war damage and colonialism.

Shortly after the war, the U.S. Government appears to have had knowledge of various Japanese war atrocities. They were aware that the Unit 731 biological warfare lab conducted experiments on human beings and "against entire populations and was responsible for anywhere from 3,000 to 200,000 deaths." ₇ The unit's commanders were given amnesty in return for access to their research records. They also had knowledge of the "rape of Nanjing" in 1937, and the comfort women issue. But they chose to largely ignore the war crimes. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), (a.k.a. the Tokyo Tribunal) of 1946 primarily concerned itself with the charge of waging wars of aggression. Gross human rights violations were largely ignored. ₆ In their defense, it is important to note that human rights in 1946 did not have the high profile that they do today.

1997-1998: 105th Congress resolution:

In 1997, Rep. William O. Lipinski (IL) submitted a concurrent resolution (H. CON. RES. 126) which expressed "the sense of Congress concerning the war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II." It described how "the Government of Japan deliberately ignored and flagrantly violated the Geneva and Hague Conventions and committed atrocious crimes against humanity." Included brief descriptions of the:

	Maltreatment of over 47,000 Americans captured by the Japanese military.
	Maltreatment of the people of Guam
	Chemical and biological experiments on prisoners of war.
	Enslavement of millions of Koreans and forcing "hundreds of thousands of women into sexual slavery for Japanese troops."
	Death rate of US prisoners-of-war which approached 40%, in comparison with the death rate of POWs held by the German Nazis which was about 1.2%.
	Refusal by the Government of Japan to fully acknowledge its crimes, or to compensate its victims.

The resolution asked that the Government of Japan:

	Formally issue a clear an unambiguous apology for its war crimes, and
	Immediately pay reparations to the victims of those crimes.

The resolution was initially co-sponsored by eight Democrats and seven Republicans. ₈ This eventually grew to at least 39 sponsors. It was backed by many Chinese communities in the U.S., and by many organizations, including the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans.

Rep. Lipinski stated:

"Post-war Germany's readiness to express remorse and take actions to try to address Nazi wrongs has been a vital part of the evolution of a benign Germany democracy that is trusted and respected throughout the world. Post-war Japan's reluctance to do the same has resulted in the exact opposite. It has undeniably stained her reputation in the international community. It is high time that the Japanese government step up to the place and do the right thing." ₉

According to the Sun Tzu Organization:

"What Congressman Lipinski's draft resolution does not mention is Japan's top secret 'Kill Order,' sent by radio to prison camp commanders in 1945 ordering them to 'annihilate' all POW 'leaving no trace', destroy all records, and to avoid capture and interrogation by making good their escapes from advancing U.S. and allied forces." ₁₀

In 1998, the resolution was blocked because the U.S. State Department objected to the reparation clause. The resolution has since died.

2000-DEC: International war crimes tribunal

The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Military Sexual Slavery was an unofficial war crimes tribunal that was organized and convened by a Japanese-based non-governmental organization (NGO), the Violence Against Women in War Network. Also participating were people of six other countries from which women had been enslaved: China, Indonesia, North Korea, South Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan. It was held in Tokyo, on 2000-DEC-7 to 12. A distinguished international team of prosecutors was present, including:

	Patricia Viseur-Sellers, an American legal advisor to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,
	Ustinia Dolgopol, an Australian legal scholar,
	Prosecutorial teams from a joint North and South Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Malaysia and the Netherlands.

Chief Judge Gabrielle Kirk MacDonald, an American who had served as President of the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal, spoke for herself and three other judges. She denounced the late Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal. Ms. MacDonald said, "Hirohito knew or should have known about the establishment of the system of comfort stations, but he took no action to respond."

Facts revealed at a 2001-NOV conference in Los Angeles, CA:

A conference on "Japanese Crimes Against Humanity: Sexual Slavery and Forced Labor" was held in Los Angeles, CA, in late 2001-NOV. Japanese researchers delivered papers which claimed that the Japanese military, the rest of the government, and Japanese industry were all involved in the decision to provide sex slaves for the country's soldiers. ₅

Some information released during the conference:

Japanese historian Hirofumi Hayashi of Kanto-Gakuin University in Yokohama, Japan, said:

"The establishment and development of the military 'comfort women' system...was not only carried out by the total involvement of every section of the military but also by administrative machinery at every level of the Japanese state...In addition, we should not overlook that Japanese companies were their accomplices."

	Researchers from the Center for Research and Documentation of Japan's War Responsibilities in Yokohama showed that Japanese rubber companies were under government contract to supply 20 million condoms a year to armed forces once the decision had been made to provide sex slaves to the soldiers. Rumiko Nishino wrote that "high-ranking adjutants" commissioned by Cabinet and sub-Cabinet-level government officials implemented the distribution of the condoms. The availability of condoms to the general population became "almost nil."
	Su Zhi Liang, a professor of history professor from Shanghai Teachers University, noted that an earlier estimate by a United Nations human rights agency was conservative. That agency had estimated that 200,000 comfort women were involved. Liang determined that there were 90 sex stations, each with about 500 women, in Shanghai alone.
	Ken Arimitsu, coordinator of the International Campaign for Redress, said that only pressure from other nations -- particularly from the U.S. -- can change the stance of the Japanese government. He said that his group and supporters "...are a minority of Japanese society, so we need strong support from outside Japan."
	Edward T. Chang, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California --Riverside organized the conference. He commented: "Americans know much about the Nazi atrocities against the Jews, but they know very little of the atrocities committed against Asians by the Japanese military."

2007: Japanese prime minister denies sexual slavery happened:

On 2007-MAR-02, Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said that the "comfort women" were not coerced into becoming sexual slaves. He said:

"There was no evidence to prove there was coercion as initially suggested. That largely changes what constitutes the definition of coercion, and we have to take it from there," he said.

Lee Yong-soo, 78, was about 15 years of age when she was kidnapped by Japanese soldiers from South Korea to work in a brothel in Taiwan. She said:

"The Japanese government must not run from its responsibilities. I want them to apologize and to admit that they took me away when I was a little girl to be a sex slave,"

Mr Abe's comment negates an apology by the government's chief spokesman, Yohei Kono for the women's suffering in 1993. Mr Abe and about 120 MPs from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party wants the 1993 apology toned down.

John Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state who was visiting Tokyo at the time of Mr. Abe's statement said: "Our view is that what happened during the war was deplorable." ₁₁

Books, web sites, an article and a movie:

	Brough's Books maintains a list of books which describe wartime atrocities committed by Japanese forces. See: http://www.dropbears.com/. Most deal with the Rape of Nanking and the Comfort Women atrocities.
	Chunghee Sarah Soh, "Links to Comfort Women documents," at: http://online.sfsu.edu/
	Dai Sil Kim Gibson, "Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women," Mid-Prarie Books, (1999).  Read reviews or order the book safely from Amazon.com online book store
	Maria R. Henson, "Comfort Woman : A Filipina's Story of Prostitution and Slavery Under the Japanese Military," Rowman & Littlefield, (1999). Read reviews or order the book
	George L. Hicks, "The comfort women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War," W.W. Norton, (1997). Read reviews or order the book
	Nora Okja Keller, "Comfort Women," Viking, (1997). This is a novel. Order this book
	Jill S. Medvedow, et al., "Bamboo Echoes: A New Work by Mona Higuchi: Dedicated to the Comfort Women." Order this book
	S.C. Schellstede & Soon Mi Yu, "Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military,"  Holmes & Meier, (2000) The book includes a New United Nations Human Rights Report. Order this book
	Yoshiaki Yoshimi, "Comfort Women : Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II (Asia Perspectives)," Columbia University Press, (2000). Read reviews or order the book
	"The Comfort Women: Colonialism, War and Sex," Special edition of Positions, East Asia Culture Critique, Duke University, Vol. 5, Number 1, Spring 1997.
	Ustinia Dolgopol & Snehal Paranjape, "Comfort Women: An Unfinished Ordeal," A Report of the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva, Switzerland, (1994).
	Dai Sil Kim Gibson has also produced a movie: "Silence Broken." It was broadcast on PBS on 2000-MAY. Excerpt from a review by Library Journal, 2000-JUL:

"English subtitles communicate the raw stories of these women, some only children when they were taken, who were repeatedly raped, abused, forced into prostitution, and shipped like military supplies to far off places. When the survivors returned home, their own government shamed them into silence. Today, many Japanese leaders and veterans deny responsibility and refused to apologize or provide compensation."

For ordering information, see: http://www.twotigers.org/

"The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan," has a web site at: http://witness.peacenet.or.kr/

References:

1. "News from Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues, Inc.," at: http://witness.peacenet.or.kr/
2. From an Amazon.com online book store editorial review.
3. Dai Sil Kim Gibson, "What were comfort women?," at: http://www.twotigers.org/
4. K.C. Kang, "Japanese Government Knew About Sex Slaves, Researchers Say; WWII: System of 'comfort women' for soldiers was carried out by the regime, not just the military, conference is told." L.A. Times, at: http://www.latimes.com/
5. Chunghee Sarah Soh, "The Comfort Women Project," at: http://online.sfsu.edu/
6. Dai Sil Kim Gibson, "The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Military Sexual Slavery," at: http://www.twotigers.org/
7. Thomas Walkom, "Identifying evildoers a tough task," The Toronto Star, 2001-DEC-18, Page A25.
8. "Lipinski Resolution" at: http://witness.peacenet.or.kr
9. "U.S. Congressman Lipinski and 15 Other Members of the House Shine the Light on Japanese War Crimes," at: http://witness.peacenet.or.kr/
10. "Subject: House Resolution (US): Japan apologize and compensate," Sun Tzu Organization, 1997-APR-16, at: http://www.kimsoft.com/
11.  Colin Joyce, "Japanese PM denies wartime 'comfort women' were forced," Telegraph.co.uk, 2007-MAR-03, at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Site navigation:

Copyright © 2001 to 2009 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2001-DEC-4
Latest update: 2009-NOV-08
Author: B.A. Robinson

Sponsored link

Web ReligiousTolerance.org

Page Translator: This page translator works on Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Safari browsers only After translating, click on the "show original" button at the top of this page to restore page to English.