History and Justice

Before and during World War II, estimated 100,000 to 200,000 women were tricked or forced to serve as sexual slaves for months or years by the Japanese military. More than 80 percent of women were believed Korean. Many of the rest were Chinese, Philippines, Indonesians, Taiwanese and Burmese whose country was under the Japanese occupation. Small number of Dutch women and Japanese women were also enslaved.

Many of women were deceived that they would get a job in a factory and make good money. Others were abducted by Japanese police or its collaborators. Some of them were compulsively diverted from drafted work camps.

The victimized women, who were euphemistically called military “comfort women”, jugun ianfu in Japanese, were sent to North Manchuria, China, Philippines, Burma, Indonesia and other small Pacific islands occupied by Japanese forces and imprisoned in military rape camps. The Japanese military allotted each a small room in the military brothel and made them serve 10 to 20 or more solders a day. Women were often abused, beaten, starved and threatened.  When they got pregnant, women were forced to get abortion.

The first “comfort station” was established in Shanghai in 1932 and Korean women from in the Korean mining community in Japan were victimized. After Rape of Nanking in 1937, the Japanese military brought back comfort stations throughout their occupied territories. The Japanese military started to aggressively draft women and forced them into sexual slavery for Japanese solders.

The existence of this systematic sexual slavery began to seize public attention when women’s groups including the Korean Women’s Association demanded an official apology, thorough investigation and proper compensation to the Japanese government in May 1990 before the president Noh visited Japan.  The Japanese government stated that neither the government nor the military was involved with the Comfort Women issue and it was operated by private entrepreneurs. The Japanese government also denied any further initiation on the issue in 1991 in the response on an open letter sent by the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Sexual Slavery by Japan.

The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Sexual Slavery by Japan, formed in 1990, and other related organizations actively started their movements to resolve the Comfort Women issue and a first public testimony by a former comfort woman, Kim Hak Sun and a law suit by three former comfort women were significant turning points in the movements. The Council began to receive reports from former comfort women and started Wednesday Demonstration in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Korea every Wednesday.

In 1992, the Comfort Women issue was raised at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the first Asian Solidarity Conference for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan was held in Seoul.  Upon demands, law suits and international activities, in August 1993, The Japanese Cabinet Councilors’ Office on External Affairs hesitantly admitted the Japanese government’s direct and indirect involvement in forcing women into sexual slavery in the military brothel.

In July 1995, Asian Women’s Fund, a private compensation fund, was established by the Japanese government. Even with repeated demonstrations against the fund due to its indicatation that the Japanese government wouldn’t be legally responsible, Asian Women’s Fund paid “atonement money” to seven former comfort women.

The first official admittance of the Japanese government’s responsibility upon the Comfort Women issue was in April 1998 when the court Simonoseki ruled that the Japanese government should compensate three former Korean comfort women.

The military sexual slavery by Japan has become a significant human right issue which has been raised by the United Nations Commission, International Labor Organization (ILO) and many NGOs from Korea and other countries and the issue has seized international attention since early 1990’s. Yet, as of 2005 April, the Japanese government has not made a public apology and compensation and none of the responsible for operating the Comfort Women has not been punished.