1. Kayt Frost
International Communications
Camilla Wilson
May 4th 2015
Comfort Women
When I was a little girl, my sisters and I would argue about insignificant things. Who got what
toy, who would be the princess, or which one of us could play with a certain beanie baby. These
arguments eventually would lead to an intervention by my parents, who would not take sides, but
stated that if we did not resolve the argument ourselves, they would hire Joe “the pooper scooper” as
our next babysitter.
Joe was described as a very boring, not fun and smelly babysitter. In our minds Joe was “the big
bad wolf”. My parents had my sisters and I convinced that they would truly hire “Joe” which scared us
enough to stop fighting. As I got older I came to the realization that Joe was not real and that he was a
made up concept created by my parents.
Similarly, Japanese government officials are doing the opposite, they are trying to eliminate
certain aspects of their involvement in WWII. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has “tightened curriculum
guidelines that require publishers to state the government’s official view on contentious issues”
according to the Guardian article written by Justin McCurry.
The “contentious issues” include the Rape of Nanking, the treatment of Allied prisoners of war
and the use of “comfort women” by the imperial army before and during WWII.
Today I will inform you about the current issues of the so called comfort women, the history,
and the different sides of this issue.

2. On April 29th, Shinzo Abe made a visit to the United States to address a joint session of
Congress, the first ever Japanese prime minister to do so. Many expected and called upon Abe to
acknowledge and apologize for the atrocities regarding the coercion of approximately 20,000 Asian
women to work for Japanese military brothels.
However when the time came for Abe to make an apology, he did not. The Guardian article by
Justin McCurry states that the Prime Minister had “indicated that he does not see the need to repeat
two key parts of his predecessors’ statements: a ‘heartfelt apology’ for Japan’s wartime conduct and an
admission that it waged a ‘war of aggression”.
Additionally, Japan has a campaign to rewrite its wartime history. McCurry writes “Suken
Shuppan a Tokyo-based publisher said it had successfully applied to the education ministry to remove
references to “comfort women” – a euphemism for sex slaves commonly used in Japan – from three
social studies and politics textbooks.”
As Abe’s new campaign of “forward looking” described in his speech to congress, he is “quietly
undermining the official apology” [The 1993 apology given by then chief cabinet secretary Yohei Kono]
as stated by McCurry.
The conflict between Seoul and Tokyo has prevented the two leaders, Abe and Park (Gwen hi)
Geun-hye, from holding a summit, or a meeting between the two heads of government.
Overall the issue today is that Abe will not officially apologize for the actions of Japan on the
sexual slavery of many Asian women and a war of aggression against China.
In 1895 Taiwan became a colony of Japan and then in 1910, so did Korea. Japan controlled both
Korea and Taiwan up until the start of World War II. During the 1930’s-40’s Japan began a war of
aggression against China. The aim of this war was to form an Asia-Pacific Empire under Japanese rule.

3. During this time there was an incident known as the “Rape of Nanking”. The Rape of Nanking
consisted of the Japanese military invading and ultimately destroying the city of Nanking. The military
had committed violent atrocities consisting mainly of the large scale rape of young women & girls, and
the general mistreatment to the rest of the population.
The press reports of the Rape of Nanking shed a negative light on the Imperial Army. Emperor
Hirohito wanted to restore the “honor of Japan” and stop the negative view of Japan by the press.
What this eventually lead to was the creation of “comfort stations”. These comfort stations
were essentially military brothels. According to “Sexual Slavery and the ‘Comfort Women’ of World War
II” by Carmen M. Argibay, comfort stations had existed since 1932.
Japanese soldiers referred to them as whore houses or brothels. The first comfort stations may
have held licensed prostitutes, but after the Rape of Nanking, military regulation of these stations
changed them into facilities for sexual slavery.
There were four reasons as to why Japan created the comfort stations.
1. The restoration of Japan’s image to other countries.
2. To prevent Anti-Japanese sentiment among local residents in their colonies and
occupied territories.
3. Medical expenses and to keep military personnel healthier, less venereal disease
4. To keep the comfort women isolated
The ideas behind each of these were to try and keep a positive image in international countries,
prevent the communication of military secrets, keeping the soldiers healthy, and to stay in good
relations with the civilians of occupied territories.

4. The real atrocity was how the women were lured into “working” for the military. Many soldiers
would use deception as a way to get the women to go with them. The recruiters would promise a good
paying job which would help sustain their families with food and shelter.
Some recruiters would mention the comfort stations, but many women misinterpreted what
that meant and it was not made clear until it was too late. Some girls were even purchased from families
who would sign “servitude contracts”. They would become the military property for anywhere between
6 months to a year, however, these “indentured servants” were never allowed to leave the comfort
stations even after the contract was fulfilled. Many women were also forcibly abducted in both
territories and colonies.
The majority of these women were between the ages of 14-28. As I researched I found that the
women there would be forced to have sexual relations anywhere from 5-20 times a day with multiple
men.
These women were taken away from their families and sent to stations where they did not know
the language, did know where they were and were completely isolated. If the women tried to escape,
they would be beaten
The news coverage I found was very one-sided, which was for the demands and expectations
that Abe should apologize for the atrocities of the Japanese Military during the 2nd world war. The news
articles from Japanese publications did not vary in stance on what was reported during their Prime
Ministers visit to the US. Through my research I did find one article from the Japan Times by Reiji
Yoshida which states “Shinichi Kitaoka, president of International University of Japan and an expert on
Japanese diplomatic and political history, wants Abe to acknowledge what the nationalist leader

5. apparently does not want to clearly admit in public: that Japan fought “a war of aggression” against
China in the 1930s and ’40s.”
I thought this was interesting because Kitaoka is a close advisor to Abe and it seems that the
denial to a war of aggression and the existence of comfort women is mainly governmental and not by
the people.
However with the changes in history textbooks, this may become true in the following years
due to the possible ignorance of Japan’s upcoming generations.
The article by Carmen Arbigay was very informative about the history of the comfort women
and sexual slavery. She presented facts in such a way I could tell she was very against what happened to
these women, due to her word choice.
Another article taken from CNN written by Mike Honda, was very good even though it was an
opinion piece. Mike made very valid points which would help Japan move forward in a positive way in
both self-improvement and in its relations with other countries such as the US and S. Korea, one of
which would be to apologize for the actions during WWII.
Before this project, I did not know anything about the Comfort Women or much of Japan’s
involvement during world war II. I also learned that Japan’s government is very stubborn and that they
refuse to apologize for what happened in the past. Without sincere official apologies from the Japanese
government I do not think that their plans of “forward-thinking” will not happen. I do hope, however,
that Japan will be able to resolve these issues and make the necessary apologies, like I had to do when I
would fight with my sisters.