Historical Background
Hak-Soon Kim (1924 – 1997), the first victim to testify in public on August 14, 1991, speaking at the Wednesday Rally in 1996
Photo credit: Korean Council (from exhibition Truth & Justice: Remembering “Comfort Women”)
The term “comfort women,” “ianfu (慰安婦),” is a deceptively gentle translation referring to Japanese military sex slaves before and during World War II. The “comfort women” reference is a distortion because it disguises the darkness and inhumanity of repeated violence and rape. Indeed, survivor Yong-Soo Lee (b. Korea, 1928) refuses to be referred to as a former “comfort woman.” She said, “I never wanted to give comfort to those men.”[1] The “comfort” was meant only for the Japanese imperial soldiers, not for the sex slaves themselves. Etsuro Totsuka, an international human rights lawyer, proposed the use of the term “sex slaves” instead of “comfort women” to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for the first time in 1992. Yet still the term “comfort women” stayed in common use for decades. In order to draw the connection, ESJF uses the terms “comfort women” and Japanese military sex slaves interchangeably. The term “comfort women” is enclosed in quotes to acknowledge its use as a euphemism.
“Comfort women” were the victims of a military sexual slavery system established, operated, and expanded by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces from the 1930s until the end of WW II.[2] During that timespan, this system forced more than 200,000 girls and women[3] from at least thirteen Asian countries into sexual slavery (see Appendix A). As Chung-Ok Yun, Professor Emeritus at Ewha Woman’s University, stated: the term “women’s volunteer labor corps”[4] was used instead of “comfort women” in forcibly recruiting girls and women. The first known “comfort station” was established in Shanghai in 1932, and after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the number of comfort stations multiplied.[5]
Depending on the degree of control that the Imperial Japanese government had on each of its neighboring countries, young girls and women were recruited, coerced, conscripted, or forced into military sexual slavery. Various methods—including kidnapping, deceptive recruitment, pressure on families, and human trafficking—were used to operate the military sexual slavery system against international treaties.[6] The three violated treaties are: 1) Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907); 2) International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children (1921); and 3) International Labor Organization Convention Concerning Forced Labor for perpetuating the “comfort women” system during the war (1930). These victims, who were forced into Japanese military sexual slavery against international laws, were deprived of four types of freedoms: freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to decline to have sexual intercourse, and freedom to quit.[7] The trauma they experienced didn’t liberate them when the most violent war in history ended in 1945. Surviving victims testified that the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces either mass murdered military sex slaves or abandoned them at the end of WWII. Even though the war ended, the crimes that the Japanese government committed against the women and girls, mostly from poor families, were never formally acknowledged. This perpetuated the underlying causes—war, violence, and discrimination to name a few—of the crimes that affected the “comfort women” before, during, and after WWII.
Instead of referring to the victims and survivors of Japan’s WWII military sexual slavery system euphemistically as “comfort women,” activists and supporters began calling them “grandmothers.” The reason for this was that the young girls and women who were once sex slaves had grown old by the time the inhumane crimes committed against them were made known to the world. The following words mean “grandmother” in different languages in Asian countries mentioned in this guide. The Chinese words for “grandmother” below are terms used by Japanese activists in the women’s movement. Since the 1990s, the survivors and their supporters in many parts of the world have worked together to bring justice to this sidelined history.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/70-years-later-a-korean-comfort-woman-demands-apology-from-japan/2015/04/22/d1cf8794-e7ab-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html
[2] On the Issue of Wartime “Comfort Women.” Cabinet Councillor’s Office on External Affairs of Japan. August 4, 1993. https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/postwar/issue9308.html
[3] Qui, Peipei, and Su Zhiliang. Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 37–39.
[4] During WWII, Japan established the Women’s Volunteer Corps, a misleading organization that in reality tricked women and girls into forced labor to support Japan’s war effort.
[5] Norma Caroline. The Japanese Comfort Women and Sexual Slavery during the China and Pacific Wars, Bloomsbury, 2017, p.19.
[6] Yoshiaki, Yoshimi. Comfort Women, Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 155–160.
[7] https://apjjf.org/2015/13/1/Yoshimi-Yoshiaki/4247.html
“Comfort women” were the victims of a military sexual slavery system established, operated, and expanded by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces from the 1930s until the end of WW II.[2] During that timespan, this system forced more than 200,000 girls and women[3] from at least thirteen Asian countries into sexual slavery (see Appendix A). As Chung-Ok Yun, Professor Emeritus at Ewha Woman’s University, stated: the term “women’s volunteer labor corps”[4] was used instead of “comfort women” in forcibly recruiting girls and women. The first known “comfort station” was established in Shanghai in 1932, and after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the number of comfort stations multiplied.[5]
Depending on the degree of control that the Imperial Japanese government had on each of its neighboring countries, young girls and women were recruited, coerced, conscripted, or forced into military sexual slavery. Various methods—including kidnapping, deceptive recruitment, pressure on families, and human trafficking—were used to operate the military sexual slavery system against international treaties.[6] The three violated treaties are: 1) Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907); 2) International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children (1921); and 3) International Labor Organization Convention Concerning Forced Labor for perpetuating the “comfort women” system during the war (1930). These victims, who were forced into Japanese military sexual slavery against international laws, were deprived of four types of freedoms: freedom of residence, freedom of movement, freedom to decline to have sexual intercourse, and freedom to quit.[7] The trauma they experienced didn’t liberate them when the most violent war in history ended in 1945. Surviving victims testified that the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces either mass murdered military sex slaves or abandoned them at the end of WWII. Even though the war ended, the crimes that the Japanese government committed against the women and girls, mostly from poor families, were never formally acknowledged. This perpetuated the underlying causes—war, violence, and discrimination to name a few—of the crimes that affected the “comfort women” before, during, and after WWII.
Instead of referring to the victims and survivors of Japan’s WWII military sexual slavery system euphemistically as “comfort women,” activists and supporters began calling them “grandmothers.” The reason for this was that the young girls and women who were once sex slaves had grown old by the time the inhumane crimes committed against them were made known to the world. The following words mean “grandmother” in different languages in Asian countries mentioned in this guide. The Chinese words for “grandmother” below are terms used by Japanese activists in the women’s movement. Since the 1990s, the survivors and their supporters in many parts of the world have worked together to bring justice to this sidelined history.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/70-years-later-a-korean-comfort-woman-demands-apology-from-japan/2015/04/22/d1cf8794-e7ab-11e4-9767-6276fc9b0ada_story.html
[2] On the Issue of Wartime “Comfort Women.” Cabinet Councillor’s Office on External Affairs of Japan. August 4, 1993. https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/postwar/issue9308.html
[3] Qui, Peipei, and Su Zhiliang. Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonies from Imperial Japan’s Sex Slaves, Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 37–39.
[4] During WWII, Japan established the Women’s Volunteer Corps, a misleading organization that in reality tricked women and girls into forced labor to support Japan’s war effort.
[5] Norma Caroline. The Japanese Comfort Women and Sexual Slavery during the China and Pacific Wars, Bloomsbury, 2017, p.19.
[6] Yoshiaki, Yoshimi. Comfort Women, Columbia University Press, 2000, pp. 155–160.
[7] https://apjjf.org/2015/13/1/Yoshimi-Yoshiaki/4247.html
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