Comfort Women History

“Comfort Women” is a euphemistic term for the hundreds of thousands of women and children trafficked and forced into an institutionalized sexual slavery between 1932 and 1945 by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces. It was the longest-running single human trafficking operation of women we know of.

Koreans and Chinese comprised the largest number of the victims, but according to Mindy Kotler (Director of the Asia Policy Point), “The Comfort Women constitute the largest and most diverse group of women abused in a single conflict from a single perpetrator. There were women and girls from 60 percent of world nations and territories: Asia, Pacific, South Asia, and Europe” including the Philippines, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Australia, East Timor, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Under Japanese colonial rule, Korean girls were systematically recruited by Japanese authorities from schools and villages to join the “Voluntary Corps” to support Japan’s war efforts while many others were cheated into the “Comfort Women” system by false promises of work opportunities as factory workers and nurses, or abruptly taken from homes and streets.  Most of the victims in occupied territories in China and other region were abducted and violently coerced into sexual slavery at gunpoint.  It is estimated that some 400,000 women and children – as young as 11 years old –  were brutally abused and gang raped as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers and officers at these government-sponsored rape camps.

The “Comfort Women” were often kept in sub-human conditions and suffered from starvation, physical and psychological abuse, disease, infections, and rampant STD’s. Many committed suicide.  Only about 10 to 25% of the victims survived the end of the war. Many had already died from their conditions and suicides, and many more were massacred before the Allied troops would find them.  At the end of the war, the Japanese government attempted to systematically destroy all documentation and evidence that the “Comfort Women” had ever existed.  The survivors returned home bearing heavy burdens of psychological distress, physical ailments, and shame.  Many others remained where the “Comfort Station” was located due to the lack of means to return, or out of shame and fear of the discrimination they may face back home.  Many lived out their days ostracized from family and community. Not until the 1990’s did their stories begin to surface publicly.

In 1991, Hak-soon Kim, a Korean “Comfort Women”, became the first to share her story publicly. That year, the Japanese government acknowledged that “Comfort Women” stations did exist during World War II.  In 1993, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono announced the Kono Statement, partially acknowledging the Japanese military’s involvement in the establishment, management and transfer of the extensive existence of the “Comfort Station” system.  However, the Japanese government has never fully acknowledged or accepted the legal responsibility for this institutionalized military sexual slavery and the largest case of human trafficking of women for sexual servitude in the 20^th century. Since that time, especially during the governance of Japan by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, there has been continuous disagreement and unrest between the Japanese government and the victim communities about coming to a fair and just terms of resolution.

Gradually, monuments for the “Comfort Women” are being built around the world to memorialize the victims and their communities and to educate new generations of the dangers of warfare and a global responsibility to protect human rights.

Following information is provided courtesy of CWJC

Why should there be a Comfort Women Memorial in San Francisco, when the crimes involving them occurred in Asia during WWII?

Global Relevance: Based on the study conducted by a UN Special Rapporteur, it has been concluded that the Japanese military sexual slavery system [“Comfort Women system”] constitutes a “crime against humanity.” This is a prosecutable criminal offense in international criminal law. As such, this is not merely Japan’s problem or that of the victim countries, but an issue of global justice.

*Local Impacts: Japan’s imperialist aggression throughout Asia-Pacific (in partnership with Nazi Germany and Italy) impacted millions of people, many of whom settled in San Francisco Bay Area, making an indelible mark on our City’s development and character. They, and their descendants, are a key constituency of this city, and we have a collective duty to educate everyone about this shared history.

*Moral Tradition: San Francisco has a long and proud tradition of honoring survivors of atrocities and violence, including the Holocaust Memorial at Lincoln Park. A memorial symbolizing the victims’ struggles for justice, and the honoring the resilience of the human spirit in seeking peace and reconciliation, is an asset to this City for which respect for human dignity is a defining creed.

*Ongoing Violation: Although the Japanese Military sexual slavery system ended after WWII, it remains a current, urgent, present-day issue. In July 2014, the United Nations Human Rights committee stated,

“The Committee is…concerned about re-victimization of the former comfort women by attacks on their reputations, including some by public officials and some that are encouraged by the [Japanese] State Party’s equivocal position”;

“The Committee is concerned by the [Japanese] State party’s contradictory position that the “comfort women” were not “forcibly deported”;

“The Committee considers that this situation reflects ongoing violations of the victims’ human rights, as well as a lack of effective remedies available to them as victims of past human rights violations.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, stressed, again in August of 2014: “This is not an issue relegated to history. It is a current issue, as human rights violations against these women continue to occur as long as their rights to justice and reparation are not realised.”

In March 2016, in a joint statement, human rights experts insisted that Japan “should understand that this issue will not be considered resolved so long as all the victims, including from other Asian countries, remain unheard, their expectations unmet and their wounds left wide open.”

Why is it so important to remember Comfort Women now?

*Organized, official distortion and denialism: There is a systematic attempt at permanent erasure of WWII-era atrocities (including the Nanjing Massacre and Japanese military sexual slavery), spearheaded by Japan’s highest levels of government and the Prime Minister himself. The current government is actively working to distort its own troubled past in Japan and around the world, in particular, the ‘erasure’ of Comfort Women issue, as part of a global campaign to “improve Japan’s image.”

Concerted Erasure of History: Japan’s move to delete references of its wrongdoing during WWII from its own textbooks has resulted in the removal of Comfort Women issue (and the Nanjing Massacre) from education curricula in Japanese Textbooks. There has also been pressure on US Publishers (McGraw-Hill) to do the same (which led to swift protests by prominent US scholars). In fact, the current Prime Minister argues that it has “robbed postwar Japanese of their pride.” In April 2016, CEDAW admonished Japanese leaders for ongoing disparaging statements about the comfort women and urged their reinstatement in junior high school textbooks.

*Historical Revisionism: A New York Times article corroborates that “Japanese conservatives like Mr. Abe have bridled at historical depictions of Japan as the sole aggressor in the war, saying that it fought to liberate Asia from Western domination.” The US Congressional Research Service noted that Shinzo Abe has attempted to discredit or undermine accepted historical relevant facts.

*Risk of Recurrence: Refusal to admit to past wrongdoing leaves open the chances of recurrence. Sexual Trafficking is an issue of global concern. These crimes afflict tens of millions each year globally, including in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we must remain vigilant. Rashida Manjoo, U.N. Special Rapporteur has stated, “The demand for acknowledgement, truth, justice and reparations for acts of violence against women, is a global challenge that my mandate continues to witness. The institutionalisation of memory is crucial, both to honour victims as well as to understand and avoid such violations in the future. It is my hope that civil society actors to continue to raise public awareness at the national and international level on this issue, and the need for acknowledgement, accountability and reparations”.

In December 2015, there was an “agreement” between and Japan. Doesn’t this settle the Comfort Women issue? Most importantly, this agreement:

is repudiated by surviving Korean ‘Comfort Women’ and the global community;

was produced with no consultation with victims, who were shut out of any part of the negotiations;

leaves out ‘Comfort Women’ from other countries of the Asia Pacific;

prohibits South Korea from ever raising the issue in international fora, including the United Nations, effectively leaving Korean victims without a governmental advocate; and

demands the removal of existing comfort women statues.

UN human rights experts were so appalled by this ‘agreement’ and its terms, that they took the rare action of releasing a joint statement on this issue, followed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. The U.N High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Hussein stated in his annual report on human rights around the world, reiterated that numerous UN mechanisms had questioned the terms of this ‘agreement.’ This ‘agreement’ drew the ire of CEDAW which regretted that Japan did not take a “victim-centered approach” and urged Japan to do more to solve this issue. It is also challenged whether this “agreement” really exists as such:

no written or signed agreement has ever been produced to document or codify exactly what the agreement consists of

Different interpretations of its content have been offered by Korean and Japanese governments

the agreement was never ratified by the national assemblies of either country

in all its ambiguity, inconsistency, and contradiction, it is very likely to be repealed or disavowed by any incoming Korean governments — in fact, many argue it has started to unravel already.

Hasn’t the Japanese government apologized?

There has been no official government apology. Numerous “apology statements” have been made by individual government officials (see information packet prepared by Japanese Consulate containing excerpts of such statements here); however, unless an apology is adopted and ratified by the cabinet or the Parliament, they cannot be said to be official government action. The recent Abe “apology” (and others) are personal but not official, and as with other past statements are (and have been) subject to equivocation, disavowal, or flat-out contradiction.

To date, the Japanese legislature has not passed a single resolution of acknowledging state responsibility for the “Comfort Women” or other atrocities committed by the Japanese military during WWII. The “1993 Kono statement” delivered by the Chief Cabinet Secretary was the closest admission of coercion by the Japanese Military. However, in June 2014, the Japanese Cabinet did submit a report stating that “there is no evidence of coercion,” effectively repudiating the Kono statement; thus, its disavowal is currently the official position of the Japanese Government.

Because these apologies are not official, they are preceded and followed by contradictory statements, actions, and policies. For example, throughout the years that these ‘apologies’ were being issued, Mr. Abe has flat-out denied Japanese military responsibility for the comfort women system, and continued to insist on the Parliament floor and publicly that to succumb to such narrative about Japanese history is to be “masochistic”. US Congressional Resolution 121 condemned Shinzo Abe for these revisionist remarks, despite “volumes of evidence” to the contrary.

In 2015, Japan tripled its global PR budget to $500 million to “improve Japan’s image,” including an elaborate global campaign to rewrite its role in World War II by denying its role with regard to “Comfort Women.” Japan’s demand to remove “Comfort Women” memorial erected near the Japanese Embassy/Consulate in Seoul and Busan, as well as Japan’s interference in various municipalities around the world (including here in San Francisco) to prevent remembrances of “Comfort Women” also speak volumes about where the government’s sincerity lies in its ‘apology.’ This is an important context within which to evaluate Japan’s apology.

Is the memorial “hateful” and will it subject the innocent people of Japanese ancestry to vengeful persecution?

No. There have been no reports of actual incidents affecting people of Japanese ancestry. Numerous US towns have been subject to outcry among the Japanese MPs and citizens alike, in response to a continuous stream of news in Japanese media outlets reporting Japanese were being persecuted by Koreans due to the memorial (still ongoing in Japanese language media at present). However, police and even FBI databases on hate crimes and reports of suspected incidents in any of those areas have not once turned up any actual evidence.