History of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery

Before and during World War II, the Japanese military abducted, coerced or otherwise forced over 200,000 girls and women from their homes in countries throughout the Pacific theatre to serve as sexual slaves for the entire Japanese military in the largest trafficking of women known to modern history.

Most of the victims (known as "comfort women") were actually girls under the age of 18, some as young as 12-years old. The women and girls were conscripted to the military rape stations through force, kidnapping, coercion, and deception. At the stations, they were forced to endure cruel and humiliating violence and often rape by 30-40 soldiers each day. Many of the comfort women were taken across the sea by boats on which they were brutally raped by the soldiers on board. The victims' names were changed to Japanese names. At the end of the war, the victims were abandoned, killed by Japanese soldiers or the Allied bombing. If the victim was lucky enough to survive, she was ostracized from her community and often forbidden from marrying.

Japan's system of military sexual slavery began as early as 1932, when the Japanese military established its first "comfort station" in Shanghai. The government concocted its scheme to create a comfort system to avoid repeating the embarrassment of the "Rape of Nanking," in which the Japanese military brutally slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and raped some 80,000 women and girls, many of whom were mutilated or murdered. The government also sought control to avoid the contracting and spread of sexually transmitted diseases amongst the Japanese troops.

During the 1930s-1940s, the Japanese government built countless military rape camps all over Asia, euphemistically calling them "comfort stations" and their victims, jugun ianfu, or (military comfort women). Such stations were found wherever the Japanese army expanded, including in China, Taiwan, Borneo, the Philippines, many of the Pacific Islands, Singapore, Malaya, Burma, and Indonesia.

With Japan's rapid expansion and colonization, the number of military sexual slaves increased exponentially, and colonial countries like Korea became a primary target for recruiting comfort women. Although Japan was a signatory to the International Convention of 1921 for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Children, its officials believed these conventions were not applicable to Japan's colonies. The belief in the superiority of Japanese women and the suitability of colonial women, like Koreans, for prostitution strengthened the government's decision to use women from colonies and occupied territories as comfort women.

After the war, the Allied Powers established the International Military Tribunal for the Near East in 1946 to address some of Japan's WWII war crimes, but it did not consider the war crimes committed against the "comfort women." Tellingly, the only redress was for 35 Dutch women who were in Indonesia when conscripted into the military rape camps. The Tribunal did not account for the many Indonesian women who were also forced into prostitution by the Japanese military.

In 1987, research by Professor Jeong-Ok Yoon of Ehwa University in South Korea brought international awareness to the atrocities committed against the comfort women by the Japanese military. In 1988, women's groups began petitioning the Japanese government on the comfort women issue. In June 1990, Councilor Motooka Shoji of the Upper House of the Japanese Diet demanded that Japan investigate the comfort system. However, the Japanese government refused on the basis that no proof of such a military-backed system existed, but that it was run by private parties.

In 1991, a survivor, Hak-Soon Kim, testified publicly she was a comfort woman, and in the same year a lawsuit for restitution was brought against the Japanese government. One year later, Professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki of Chuo University discovered wartime documents in the Library of the National Institute for Defense Studies proving the existence of military rape camps.

In 1993, Japan's Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa admitted that the comfort women were forced by the military to serve as prostitutes. In 1994, former Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi apologized to the comfort women. However, the Japanese Diet quickly denounced this apology. Moreover, while the Japanese government established a private fund to provide a paltry sum to some of the survivors – the Asian Women’s Fund, it refused to take responsibility through an apology.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights raised the comfort women issue in 1992. Thereafter, hearings were held in Tokyo and at the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. In November 1994, the International Commission of Jurists, a non-governmental organization based in Geneva with consultative status at the UN, recommended on the basis of documentary evidence and survivors' testimony, that the Japanese government pay at least $40,000 to each surviving victim.

In 1996, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, and Ms. Gay J. McDougal, the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-Like Practices during Armed Conflict, reported on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery and recommended the Japanese government to take legal responsibility for violations of international law. Other international organizations like International Labor Organization, International Commission of Jurists, and the Amnesty International also urged the Japanese government to make a sincere apology and offer reparations to the victims.

At the behest of women's nongovernmental organizations ("NGOs"), including Violence Against Women in War Network, Japan, and Asian Centre for Women's Human Rights, a People's Tribunal was proposed at a 1998 Conference in Seoul. The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal for the Trial of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery ("2000 Women's Tribunal") sat in Tokyo, Japan, from December 8-12, 2000. The Tribunal considered criminal culpability of Japanese officials and the state responsibility of Japan for crimes committed against the comfort women. During the proceedings, the judges of the 2000 Women's Tribunal heard hours of testimony by 75 survivors, as well as reviewed affidavits and video interviews by countless others. The Tribunal's Judgment found Emperor Hirohito and other Japanese officials guilty of crimes against humanity and held that Japan bore state responsibility and should pay reparations to the victims.

In 2001, a Japanese right-wing nationalist organization, the History Textbook Reform Society, published high school textbooks justifying the role of Japan's militarism and colonialism during World War II. These accounts fail to mention comfort stations and the war crimes committed against comfort women. The international ramifications of this erasure of history are staggering – continuing the cycle of impunity, on the one hand, and sustaining the indignities of the victims, on the other.

Most recently, on July 30, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution demanding that Japan apologize for war crimes committed against the comfort women. Tellingly, Japan's Prime Minister reacted by calling H.R. 121 "regrettable."

Many of the surviving victims, now in their 70s and 80s, are passing away and with them the harsh truth of history's horrifying indignity to them. They are still protesting every Wednesday in front of the Japanese Embassy in South Korea. They began doing this on January 8, 1992, and held the 721st protest on August 9, 2006. Marking the 62 anniversary of World War II, the 61st anniversary of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, and seven years since the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal, the World Conference will join with survivors ("Halmunis") to restore justice, peace, and human rights.

Click below for links to documents from the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal for the Trial of Japan's Military Sexual Slavery ("2000 Tribunal"):

- Oral Judgment of the 2000 Tribunal   - Charter of the 2000 Tribunal

Contact us at info@jmss.info if you would like to request a copy of the final judgment of the 2000 Tribunal or other materials.