Comfort Women: A WWII Story Almost Forgotten

Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

For decades, tensions between Japan and South Korea have continued to rise. Despite other countries, including the United States, urging the two to reconcile, efforts to fully resolve the conflict have failed thus far. The countries have had countless disputes with each other, legal, economic, and security related. Many people, including most Japanese civilians, are unaware of the true cause of this rocky relationship. However, this cause can be traced back to Japan’s history of abuse, denials, censorship and lack of accountability.

Between 1932 and 1945, the Japanese army forced tens of thousands of Asian women into sexual slavery during World War II. These women, euphemistically referred to as “comfort women,” were “recruited” from countries all over Asia, but the majority were Korean. After they were forced into military brothels, every “recruited” woman and girl was subject to horrific treatment. Although few records of comfort women and their abuse exist, it is estimated that only around 25 percent survived the war. Today, only a dozen of those Korean women who came forward with their stories are still alive--many others may also be alive, but have decided to keep their experiences private. 

Life as A Comfort Woman

Firsthand accounts have painted a grueling picture of what “comfort women” endured on a daily basis.  

In 1991, Kim Hak-soon came forward with her story, being the first of hundreds of Korean women who made their painful wartime experiences public. She and other survivors asserted that the Japanese military used a multitude of tactics, ranging from kidnapping, coercion, to tricking them with false promises of jobs in order to lure and force women like themselves into sexual slavery. Women and girls were forcibly placed in “comfort stations” and were forced to provide sexual services from the morning to late evening without rest at these military brothels. Here, conditions were bleak and the women were forced into overcrowded rooms that had no bedding, no electricity, and little food. As the military moved, the women moved with them, but there was a minimal concern for their health or safety.

 Within a day, on average, a comfort woman would “service” up to 20 different soldiers. Some would service up to 50 a day. Soldiers were allowed to treat the women as they wished, which typically included physical and sexual abuse. It was typical for comfort stations to require that soldiers pay for the engagement--but it is altogether unlikely that the women received any portion of the payment, although, theoretically, they were supposed to. Women were rarely granted time off and were prohibited from ever leaving the comfort stations. To provide a clearer perspective of their treatment, the following stories come from comfort women survivors.

This account comes from a South Korean survivor, Kimiko Kaneda. Kaneda was born to a Korean father and Japanese mother and was re-named Kimiko Kaneda when she was 16 and forced to become a comfort woman. In 1937, Kaneda was tricked into moving to Seoul with false promises of better employment. Once she arrived, Kaneda was put onto a train that went from Seoul to Tianjin, China, where armed soldiers took her to a comfort station in Zaoqiang, China. During her time as a comfort woman, dozens of soldiers would assault her daily. When she first arrived at the comfort station, Kaneda refused to service a soldier who, after her rejection, brutally attacked and stabbed her. In addition to her horrific treatment, Kaneda witnessed girls even younger than her forced into the same sexual slavery, whose bodies were too young and were permanently mutilated over time. 

Maria Rosa Henson, the first Filipina woman who came forward with her testimony as a comfort woman, was forced into the role at just 16 years old. When Japan started their occupation of the Philippines and Henson was around 15, she was sexually assaulted by three Japanese men, one of whom was a military officer. A year later, Henson was taken by Japanese soldiers and forced into a military brothel. Her experience is similar to Kaneda’s, where she was sexually assaulted by up to 20 soldiers per day. Henson also accounts that if she refused, soldiers threatened to kill her. 

Towards the end of World War II, women like Kaneda and Henson were either abandoned or killed. Overall, thousands of women died, whether by the hands of abusive Japanese soldiers, the diseases they contracted, or, very frequently, by suicide.

Both of these stories are only some of the many, similar and equally--if not more so--  gruesome experiences of the women forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military. Because of this especially horrifying history, Japan has aimed to erase their military’s actions through censorship and public denials. 

Japanese Erasure of a Horrific Past

Multiple reports reveal that the Japanese Education Ministry has purposely edited educational textbooks on World War II to “water down” or even erase their actions during the period entirely. Officials have evaded accountability by claiming the comfort women system never even happened—more recently, official Japanese reports depicted the women as willful recruits for prostitution, denying that their military utilized any form of coercion.

The comfort women system is just one of a multitude of atrocities committed by the Japanese army which the government has sought to erase. Among the horrific events of WWII that the Japanese government aimed to censor was the Rape of Nanjing or Nanking, an incident where the Japanese military massacred, tortured, mutilated and raped hundreds of thousands of civilians during their invasion of Nanjing during the Sino-Japanese war. Within the past 10 years, there are still reports that national censorship of these events continues—due to this, even today, many Japanese civilians do not understand why other Asian countries “harbor a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s.”

After decades of denying that the Japanese army forcibly put women and girls into military brothels, the Japanese government finally acknowledged their actions in 1993. In addition to the acknowledgement, they issued their first apology to the survivors and their respective countries. This first step towards reconciliation, however, did little to alleviate the longstanding tension between Japan and the home countries of former comfort women.

A Strained Relationship with South Korea

These tensions are most visible with South Korea, where anti-Japanese sentiments are still deeply rooted among South Korean civilians. In 2015, however, both Japan and South Korea aimed to resolve their long-standing dispute. Leaders of the two countries reached a landmark agreement wherein the Japanese government provided an official apology and promised to pay over 8 million dollars, all of which would go to providing care for the surviving victims. The money was funded entirely by the Japanese government, signaling a broader effort to take accountability for their military’s past. The agreement was applauded by both the South Korean government and United States Secretary of State John Kerry.

But it appears that the agreement was unable to completely resolve the tensions between the two countries. Many outspoken critics of the agreement have demanded further accountability be taken by Japan. Among such critics were former comfort women survivors, some of whom came forward, stating that the agreement in itself was insufficient. 

“We are not craving money. What we demand is that Japan make official reparations for the crime it had committed,” said Lee Yong-soo. Lee is still alive today and is fighting for justice for the treatment she and other women endured nearly 80 years ago.

In the past year, a South Korean court issued a ruling demanding that the Japanese government pay retributions to the surviving Korean comfort women. The proposed retributions amounted to around $91,800 for each survivor. During the trial, the Japanese government rejected notices given by the South Korean court to participate. 

12 of the women filed the lawsuit in 2013—now, only 5 of them are still alive. 

After the ruling was announced, Katsunobu Kato, chief cabinet secretary to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga stated, “We have repeatedly expressed that the Japanese government is not subject to Korean jurisdiction under the principle of exemption from sovereignty under international law,” essentially, making clear that Japan has no intention of paying the retributions. 

Due to this, many view the ruling as largely symbolic, although the plaintiffs would argue it is not. The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan spoke for the plaintiffs, stating that the ruling was a “landmark one.” In addition, they urged the Japanese government to “honor the ruling and pay the compensation immediately.” 

Still today, there are no clear plans for the two countries to move forward.

As of January 2021, there are only 16 surviving Korean comfort women that the South Korean government knows of. Japan’s response to this ruling is a continuation of their rejection of accountability for their military’s past actions. For the remaining survivors, this is not surprising, but heartbreaking and frustrating—and their age is another obstacle for them. Now, all of the women are elderly and once they all pass, some worry that they will never be able to get justice.

“We’re all very old. We’re dying each year, one by one. Historically speaking the war might have stopped, but for us it's still going on, it never ended. We want the Japanese Emperor to come here, kneel before us and apologise sincerely. [But] I think the Japanese are just waiting for us to die,” Yi Ok-seon, another former comfort woman herself stated back in 2013.

An Uncertain Future

This April, a different group of South Korean survivors filed a separate suit in hopes to get a similar result, but received the opposite. A different South Korean Court released a decision contradicting the former lawsuit’s ruling, stating that the former court could not make exceptions to the principle of national sovereignty and legal jurisdiction. The reasoning behind this decision was in reference to the 2015 agreement, which the judge cited as being retribution enough, and to avoid “diplomatic clashes.” The second group of women is hoping to appeal their case to higher courts and their representatives are calling the second decision a “shameful case where the judge shirked his duty as a last bastion of human rights.” 

This fight for justice has lasted over 70 years. As the years have passed, more and more of the survivors have died. Their stories, however, do not deserve to pass with them. This article was written in the hopes to spread awareness of their horrific experiences and to aid in their fight.