Comfort Women: A History of Japanese Forced Prostitution During the Second World War
One of the worst cases of sex slavery is from an unlikely place and time: Japan...the Second World War. Different estimates say between 20,000 and 400,000 women from all over Asian were forced into prostitution to "comfort" the soldiers.
This book gives the often forgotten history of how it happened, who was involved, how they were treated, and the apology that came years later.
This book gives the often forgotten history of how it happened, who was involved, how they were treated, and the apology that came years later.
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Comfort Women PDF and ePub |
Excerpt
Introduction: Comfort Women during the War Years
During World War II as many as 200,000 women, commonly called comfort women, were forced into prostitution, brutally beaten and raped, and held prisoner throughout Asia under the direct control of the Japanese military. Comfort stations, or state-sanctioned, supported and operated brothels, existed in Japan, the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, and elsewhere. By the early years of World War II, there were comfort stations and comfort women nearly everywhere there were Japanese troops, from major military posts to the battlefield. The comfort women confined and forced to work in these brothels came from Korea, Japan, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and the Netherlands.
The stories of the comfort women remained untold in much of the world through most of the 20th century, until the 1980 and 1990s when, with great courage, these now elderly Korean women began speaking out about their experiences during the war. Most had spent their lives keeping their experiences secret, sometimes even from their own families. Once a few came forward, many more were willing to share their own experiences, sometimes anonymously. The former comfort women from Asia and elsewhere shared their stories with the world, leading to a new recognition of their plight from the international community.
Beginning in the 1930s in China, Japan established widespread comfort stations or brothels for its officers and soldiers. These comfort stations were staffed by comfort women or juugun ianfu and were state-run, mandated and supported by the Japanese military. The military justified the existence of the comfort stations in a number of ways and eventually, at the end of the war, destroyed much of the evidence of their existence in an attempt to deny involvement in widespread sexual slavery. When the military and Japanese government acknowledged the existence of these comfort stations, for many years, they claimed the women were in the comfort stations voluntarily and were willing prostitutes, and that the comfort stations were privately managed, with little involvement from the Japanese government. Even today, some Japanese officials attempt to justify the existence and captivity of comfort women as a necessity.
While the euphemistic term comfort women sounds relatively innocuous, perhaps like it refers to prostitution, under no circumstances should this be viewed as a voluntary commercial enterprise, regardless of claims made by Japan in the past. Comfort stations bore no resemblance to a commercial brothel or voluntary prostitution. In some cases, these comfort stations have been called forced prostitution; however, this too is an inadequate term. The comfort women were deprived of their freedom, raped repeatedly, and treated as sexual slaves. Many, perhaps up to 75 percent, certainly died in captivity, either from disease, battlefield injuries or brutal treatment, while those who survived bore both physical and psychological scars that lasted throughout their lives.
The history of comfort stations and comfort women is a shameful one for Japan and one that remains largely unacknowledged. Until approximately 1991, Japan claimed all brothels during the war years were privately run and unaffiliated with the military. Only when undeniable documentary evidence was discovered did the Japanese government acknowledge and apologize for the actions against these women. Organizations in Korea, the Philippines and the United States continue to fight for the rights of former comfort women to be recognized and compensated for their suffering during the war, as the number of surviving women declines with each year.
Chapter1: The Establishment of Comfort Stations
By the early 20th century, Japan controlled a significant portion of Asia and had become a prominent military power in the region. Korea and Taiwan were both under Japanese control by the early 20th century, and both Koreans and Taiwanese were both, officially, considered Japanese; however, they were frequently treated as second-class citizens. Between 1910 and 1920, the Japanese military controlled Korea entirely. Extreme acts of violence occurred, frequently in response to any potential rebellion or attempts to preserve a Korean state; however, conditions improved somewhat in Korea after 1920. Successes in Taiwan and Korea led to a desire for additional land and power, even as Japan worked to build up Korea, creating urban centers and infrastructure. While Japan created much of the defining structure in Korea during this time, many of the people remained poor, rural and uneducated. Systems and services in Korea were set up to benefit Japanese residents, rather than Koreans.
Historically, the Japanese army had a somewhat good reputation with regards to the treatment of civilians. Invasions and occupations were generally conducted in a professional manner, with relatively little harm to civilians, including rape and murder. The Japanese army was reasonably well disciplined and many areas put up little if any resistance. This positive reputation changed from 1910 onward, both in China and elsewhere. As early as 1919, reports of atrocities in Korea, including murder and rape, reached Australian newspapers, particularly in response to resistance efforts. The treatment of Korean civilians during the period between 1910 and 1920 is reflected in their later exploitation as comfort women, some 80 percent of whom were Korean.
In 1927, the nationalist government established in China by Chiang Kai-Shek faced strong opposition from Mao Tse Tung’s communist party. During the worldwide economic recession that began in 1928, Japanese trade exports to China dropped dramatically and anti-Japanese sentiment increased in China. By 1930, civil war had broken out between the communists and nationalists in China, weakening the state. The powerful Japanese army, against imperial orders, invaded and occupied Manchuria in 1931, in northeast China, taking advantage of the situation to gain access to the rich natural resources of China. The invasion of Manchuria marks the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War.
Having met little resistance, as the Chinese government was primarily concerned with their own internal disputes, the Japanese continued to encroach on Chinese territory. In 1932, the Japanese army advanced into the city of Shanghai. During the invasion of the city, large numbers of local women were raped by the invading forces, and many civilians were killed. International residents in Shanghai remained relatively safe, as the civilians of China were at the greatest risk from Japanese troops entering the city. The traditional relatively humane treatment of civilian populations had come to an end for Japanese forces.
Following the invasion of Shanghai in 1932, Japanese Lieutenant-General Okamura Yasuji requested that comfort women be sent to Shanghai in an attempt to prevent the widespread rape of civilian women. This is the first incidence of state-sanctioned and sponsored comfort stations for the army, and was based on an already extant small-scale naval practice. Following Okamura Yasuji’s request, Japanese brothels were set up in China by both the Japanese army and navy. In his 1970 memoirs, he recounted his own responsibility with regret.
Japan already had a long history of organized and regulated prostitution, including registration, health exams and active management, often by the military police, or kempeitai. In Korea, similar regulations were implemented after 1910, under the control of the kempeitai, but were less effective. The desire to implement a regulated system of prostitution was not a foreign concept within Japanese culture, and similar protocols were initially used in the military comfort stations. In this regard, the comfort stations developed out of an extant legal system. Historically and unsurprisingly, both in Asia and elsewhere, prostitution and the military have always been linked; however, it was, in most cases, a voluntary commercial arrangement.
During the early 1930s, the majority of comfort women were already prostitutes, recruited by the government, most often in the city of Nagasaki. Nagasaki had a large number of prostitutes and a substantial, in modern terms, red light district. Some of these women were Japanese, but others were Koreans already living and working in Japan. While these women were often from poor families and may have been sold into prostitution by their families, they volunteered to serve in the comfort stations in China and found these postings advantageous. The pay was quite good and conditions were considered acceptable. Recruiters often offered to pay off brothel owners or other debt, allowing women the potential of freedom following their time as a comfort woman. Additional comfort stations were established in northeast China during the early 1930s. Comfort stations continued to exist in Japanese-occupied China throughout the 1930s, but the ethnicities of the women working them changed following the invasion of Nanking.
While the incursions into China had, prior to 1937, been relatively small in the absence of a formal declaration of war, a large-scale military effort began in 1937, again in Shanghai. The Sino-Japanese war that began in 1931 intensified in Shanghai in August 1937. While the invasion in 1932 had led to significant casualties, the incidence of rape and murder increased dramatically during the 1937 invasion of the city. Following the retreat of Chinese forces, the city was undefended. Surviving civilians sought shelter in the international quarter, protected by Europeans living in the quarter. Those unable to find shelter were subject to rape, murder and sexual slavery. While comfort stations were in operation in China by this time, they did not alter the outcome for civilian residents.
As troops progressed across China, they looted, raped and murdered civilians throughout the country. In late 1937, Japanese forces reached the city of Nanking, the capital of China since 1928. Nanking’s population had ballooned as refugees fled Japanese-occupied regions and the violence that accompanied Japanese troops. There were approximately 600,000 civilians in the city when the Chinese invaded on December 13, 1937. Defending Chinese troops initially fled and eventually surrendered to the Japanese. The 90,000 Chinese troops assigned to defend Nanking were the first killed in the city.
Over the next six weeks as many as 250,000 to 300,000 civilians, many of them women and children, were massacred in the city. Men were used for bayonet practice, disemboweled and buried alive. Rape was widespread, with between 20,000 and 80,000 women and girls of all ages raped and murdered after the rape. Women were raped not only by Japanese soldiers, but also by members of their own family, forced at gunpoint. Acts of extreme brutality and violence became entertainment during the six-week invasion, commonly called the Rape of Nanking. The events in Nanking led to a war crimes tribunal and several executions following World War II. While the Japanese government has refused to acknowledge the extent of the atrocities in Nanking during the war, more evidence has come to light in recent years, including an 1100-page diary kept by the head of the local Nazi party in which he recounts stopping rapes, sheltering Chinese in foxholes and tells of the atrocities he witnessed during the Rape of Nanking. A vocal minority in Japan continues to claim that all deaths in Nanking were military.
Even before the invasion of Nanking, on December 11, 1937, the Japanese government and military became increasingly concerned by the widespread rapes occurring in China. Rape decreased local cooperation and made it more difficult to effectively occupy the country. Fundamentally, rape was not good for public relations with the community, causing civilian resistance. Additional comfort stations were ordered with the intent of reducing the occurrence of rape in China. At least one Japanese medical official questioned the use of comfort women and alcohol for relaxation, suggesting limitations on alcohol, additional leave and other forms of recreation, but his suggestions were ignored and the comfort station system remained one of the few morale-boosters present for the Japanese troops.
Local women were recruited for the new comfort stations in China, particularly after the Rape of Nanking; however, there were concerns that they would not want to serve in the comfort stations, even when offered payment. While Japanese prostitutes were originally recruited to staff the comfort stations, the number of women needed and number of stations established led the military to attempt to recruit local women. Coercion or force may have been used to recruit women to the comfort stations, even during this early period in the history of the stations, but there is little documentary evidence from this period and few Chinese women have come forward to share their own experiences. Officials expressed in military letters and reports, from late 1937 on, that the women were “pushed hard” and shared that officers and high-ranking individuals also visited the comfort stations. Their concern with staffing suggests that these comfort stations were now far from the desirable option presented to Japanese prostitutes a few years earlier. It is unknown how many Chinese women were recruited, coerced or forced into the comfort stations in China and elsewhere.
By early 1938, it had become apparent to at least some in the Japanese military that employing local women as prostitutes was creating negative sentiment among the people of China, and again, presenting a potential challenge with local cooperation. Local women also posed a higher security risk, as their alliance was to the local military and community, rather than the Japanese or a foreign country outside of the region. Given these considerations, the military began to more actively import comfort women from out of the region, rather than employing locals in China. While a few of these women were Japanese, the majority were Korean, some, but not all, already residing in Japan. Around the same time the support among the military for the existence of comfort stations increased. Comfort stations were, according to military documents, established specifically to provide a sexual outlet for Japanese soldiers, in the mistaken belief that this would eliminate rape of local women by invading or occupying troops.
As of 1939, the Japanese army attempted to provide one comfort woman per 100 soldiers. This was a relatively low number, as there was later a goal of one woman per 35 soldiers. Surviving military documents refer to these women as “imported,” much as rations and other goods were. In some wartime documents comfort women were categorized with “war supplies” on shipping invoices. Based on documentary evidence, it is likely that most comfort women in China in 1939 were Korean.
The comfort stations were regulated by the military to ensure the safety and well being of the soldiers and officers using the facilities. Measures were taken to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including condoms and regular medical exams. Officially, the women were to receive food, shelter, clothing, medical care and wages for their services. While Japanese soldiers did pay a small amount to use the comfort stations, in many comfort stations throughout the Pacific the women were not paid at all and, in fact, the brothels provided a source of revenue for the military.
There were three types or categories of comfort stations. While the specific management of the comfort stations varied, all were under military control. In many cases, the comfort stations were largely controlled by the Japanese military police or the kempeitai, and these individuals were responsible for some of the most brutal atrocities of the war years, particularly acts of violence toward comfort women. While the army officially supervised the station, day-to-day management and conditions were, from 1938 onward, often in the hands of private operators, treated as paramilitary contractors. Some of these contractors were Japanese brothel owners, while others were retired military officers. Nearly all private brothel proprietors were Japanese. Since many stations were handled by private contractors, conditions varied from station to station.
The first type of comfort stations were permanent installations, located on military bases. While these were primarily staffed by Korean or Chinese women, some Japanese women also worked in these stations and served the officers on base. These comfort stations were housed in permanent buildings and typically had scheduled medical examinations by military doctors. The women were often entitled to military rations or fed in the military mess hall. Food and hygiene were adequate and a formal ticketing system was in place. These facilities were, on the whole, somewhat better managed, with access to medical treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, time off to recover from illness, and days off for menstruation.
A second type of comfort station was attached to large troop divisions and, in many cases, moved with the troops. Both permanent and large division comfort stations could be directly run by the military or by private proprietors under military supervision. Stations attached to large troop divisions were less well managed and were typically not staffed by Japanese women, but could request comfort women through the army supply system. Many were staffed by Korean women, who were used by both officers and enlisted men. Conditions varied in these comfort stations, but were often less well regulated and harsher.
The third type of comfort station was located in the war zones or along battlefields. These were poorly supervised and were managed by individual battalions, rather than private proprietors. While permanent and larger division comfort stations were under the control of military authorities and were staffed largely by Japanese or Korean women, local women were often coerced or forced into smaller battalion level comfort stations. Some battalion level stations did receive shipments of women or visits from women from other comfort stations. As the comfort station system expanded during World War II, this basic three-part structure remained consistent throughout the Pacific.
During World War II as many as 200,000 women, commonly called comfort women, were forced into prostitution, brutally beaten and raped, and held prisoner throughout Asia under the direct control of the Japanese military. Comfort stations, or state-sanctioned, supported and operated brothels, existed in Japan, the Philippines, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, and elsewhere. By the early years of World War II, there were comfort stations and comfort women nearly everywhere there were Japanese troops, from major military posts to the battlefield. The comfort women confined and forced to work in these brothels came from Korea, Japan, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and the Netherlands.
The stories of the comfort women remained untold in much of the world through most of the 20th century, until the 1980 and 1990s when, with great courage, these now elderly Korean women began speaking out about their experiences during the war. Most had spent their lives keeping their experiences secret, sometimes even from their own families. Once a few came forward, many more were willing to share their own experiences, sometimes anonymously. The former comfort women from Asia and elsewhere shared their stories with the world, leading to a new recognition of their plight from the international community.
Beginning in the 1930s in China, Japan established widespread comfort stations or brothels for its officers and soldiers. These comfort stations were staffed by comfort women or juugun ianfu and were state-run, mandated and supported by the Japanese military. The military justified the existence of the comfort stations in a number of ways and eventually, at the end of the war, destroyed much of the evidence of their existence in an attempt to deny involvement in widespread sexual slavery. When the military and Japanese government acknowledged the existence of these comfort stations, for many years, they claimed the women were in the comfort stations voluntarily and were willing prostitutes, and that the comfort stations were privately managed, with little involvement from the Japanese government. Even today, some Japanese officials attempt to justify the existence and captivity of comfort women as a necessity.
While the euphemistic term comfort women sounds relatively innocuous, perhaps like it refers to prostitution, under no circumstances should this be viewed as a voluntary commercial enterprise, regardless of claims made by Japan in the past. Comfort stations bore no resemblance to a commercial brothel or voluntary prostitution. In some cases, these comfort stations have been called forced prostitution; however, this too is an inadequate term. The comfort women were deprived of their freedom, raped repeatedly, and treated as sexual slaves. Many, perhaps up to 75 percent, certainly died in captivity, either from disease, battlefield injuries or brutal treatment, while those who survived bore both physical and psychological scars that lasted throughout their lives.
The history of comfort stations and comfort women is a shameful one for Japan and one that remains largely unacknowledged. Until approximately 1991, Japan claimed all brothels during the war years were privately run and unaffiliated with the military. Only when undeniable documentary evidence was discovered did the Japanese government acknowledge and apologize for the actions against these women. Organizations in Korea, the Philippines and the United States continue to fight for the rights of former comfort women to be recognized and compensated for their suffering during the war, as the number of surviving women declines with each year.
Chapter1: The Establishment of Comfort Stations
By the early 20th century, Japan controlled a significant portion of Asia and had become a prominent military power in the region. Korea and Taiwan were both under Japanese control by the early 20th century, and both Koreans and Taiwanese were both, officially, considered Japanese; however, they were frequently treated as second-class citizens. Between 1910 and 1920, the Japanese military controlled Korea entirely. Extreme acts of violence occurred, frequently in response to any potential rebellion or attempts to preserve a Korean state; however, conditions improved somewhat in Korea after 1920. Successes in Taiwan and Korea led to a desire for additional land and power, even as Japan worked to build up Korea, creating urban centers and infrastructure. While Japan created much of the defining structure in Korea during this time, many of the people remained poor, rural and uneducated. Systems and services in Korea were set up to benefit Japanese residents, rather than Koreans.
Historically, the Japanese army had a somewhat good reputation with regards to the treatment of civilians. Invasions and occupations were generally conducted in a professional manner, with relatively little harm to civilians, including rape and murder. The Japanese army was reasonably well disciplined and many areas put up little if any resistance. This positive reputation changed from 1910 onward, both in China and elsewhere. As early as 1919, reports of atrocities in Korea, including murder and rape, reached Australian newspapers, particularly in response to resistance efforts. The treatment of Korean civilians during the period between 1910 and 1920 is reflected in their later exploitation as comfort women, some 80 percent of whom were Korean.
In 1927, the nationalist government established in China by Chiang Kai-Shek faced strong opposition from Mao Tse Tung’s communist party. During the worldwide economic recession that began in 1928, Japanese trade exports to China dropped dramatically and anti-Japanese sentiment increased in China. By 1930, civil war had broken out between the communists and nationalists in China, weakening the state. The powerful Japanese army, against imperial orders, invaded and occupied Manchuria in 1931, in northeast China, taking advantage of the situation to gain access to the rich natural resources of China. The invasion of Manchuria marks the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War.
Having met little resistance, as the Chinese government was primarily concerned with their own internal disputes, the Japanese continued to encroach on Chinese territory. In 1932, the Japanese army advanced into the city of Shanghai. During the invasion of the city, large numbers of local women were raped by the invading forces, and many civilians were killed. International residents in Shanghai remained relatively safe, as the civilians of China were at the greatest risk from Japanese troops entering the city. The traditional relatively humane treatment of civilian populations had come to an end for Japanese forces.
Following the invasion of Shanghai in 1932, Japanese Lieutenant-General Okamura Yasuji requested that comfort women be sent to Shanghai in an attempt to prevent the widespread rape of civilian women. This is the first incidence of state-sanctioned and sponsored comfort stations for the army, and was based on an already extant small-scale naval practice. Following Okamura Yasuji’s request, Japanese brothels were set up in China by both the Japanese army and navy. In his 1970 memoirs, he recounted his own responsibility with regret.
Japan already had a long history of organized and regulated prostitution, including registration, health exams and active management, often by the military police, or kempeitai. In Korea, similar regulations were implemented after 1910, under the control of the kempeitai, but were less effective. The desire to implement a regulated system of prostitution was not a foreign concept within Japanese culture, and similar protocols were initially used in the military comfort stations. In this regard, the comfort stations developed out of an extant legal system. Historically and unsurprisingly, both in Asia and elsewhere, prostitution and the military have always been linked; however, it was, in most cases, a voluntary commercial arrangement.
During the early 1930s, the majority of comfort women were already prostitutes, recruited by the government, most often in the city of Nagasaki. Nagasaki had a large number of prostitutes and a substantial, in modern terms, red light district. Some of these women were Japanese, but others were Koreans already living and working in Japan. While these women were often from poor families and may have been sold into prostitution by their families, they volunteered to serve in the comfort stations in China and found these postings advantageous. The pay was quite good and conditions were considered acceptable. Recruiters often offered to pay off brothel owners or other debt, allowing women the potential of freedom following their time as a comfort woman. Additional comfort stations were established in northeast China during the early 1930s. Comfort stations continued to exist in Japanese-occupied China throughout the 1930s, but the ethnicities of the women working them changed following the invasion of Nanking.
While the incursions into China had, prior to 1937, been relatively small in the absence of a formal declaration of war, a large-scale military effort began in 1937, again in Shanghai. The Sino-Japanese war that began in 1931 intensified in Shanghai in August 1937. While the invasion in 1932 had led to significant casualties, the incidence of rape and murder increased dramatically during the 1937 invasion of the city. Following the retreat of Chinese forces, the city was undefended. Surviving civilians sought shelter in the international quarter, protected by Europeans living in the quarter. Those unable to find shelter were subject to rape, murder and sexual slavery. While comfort stations were in operation in China by this time, they did not alter the outcome for civilian residents.
As troops progressed across China, they looted, raped and murdered civilians throughout the country. In late 1937, Japanese forces reached the city of Nanking, the capital of China since 1928. Nanking’s population had ballooned as refugees fled Japanese-occupied regions and the violence that accompanied Japanese troops. There were approximately 600,000 civilians in the city when the Chinese invaded on December 13, 1937. Defending Chinese troops initially fled and eventually surrendered to the Japanese. The 90,000 Chinese troops assigned to defend Nanking were the first killed in the city.
Over the next six weeks as many as 250,000 to 300,000 civilians, many of them women and children, were massacred in the city. Men were used for bayonet practice, disemboweled and buried alive. Rape was widespread, with between 20,000 and 80,000 women and girls of all ages raped and murdered after the rape. Women were raped not only by Japanese soldiers, but also by members of their own family, forced at gunpoint. Acts of extreme brutality and violence became entertainment during the six-week invasion, commonly called the Rape of Nanking. The events in Nanking led to a war crimes tribunal and several executions following World War II. While the Japanese government has refused to acknowledge the extent of the atrocities in Nanking during the war, more evidence has come to light in recent years, including an 1100-page diary kept by the head of the local Nazi party in which he recounts stopping rapes, sheltering Chinese in foxholes and tells of the atrocities he witnessed during the Rape of Nanking. A vocal minority in Japan continues to claim that all deaths in Nanking were military.
Even before the invasion of Nanking, on December 11, 1937, the Japanese government and military became increasingly concerned by the widespread rapes occurring in China. Rape decreased local cooperation and made it more difficult to effectively occupy the country. Fundamentally, rape was not good for public relations with the community, causing civilian resistance. Additional comfort stations were ordered with the intent of reducing the occurrence of rape in China. At least one Japanese medical official questioned the use of comfort women and alcohol for relaxation, suggesting limitations on alcohol, additional leave and other forms of recreation, but his suggestions were ignored and the comfort station system remained one of the few morale-boosters present for the Japanese troops.
Local women were recruited for the new comfort stations in China, particularly after the Rape of Nanking; however, there were concerns that they would not want to serve in the comfort stations, even when offered payment. While Japanese prostitutes were originally recruited to staff the comfort stations, the number of women needed and number of stations established led the military to attempt to recruit local women. Coercion or force may have been used to recruit women to the comfort stations, even during this early period in the history of the stations, but there is little documentary evidence from this period and few Chinese women have come forward to share their own experiences. Officials expressed in military letters and reports, from late 1937 on, that the women were “pushed hard” and shared that officers and high-ranking individuals also visited the comfort stations. Their concern with staffing suggests that these comfort stations were now far from the desirable option presented to Japanese prostitutes a few years earlier. It is unknown how many Chinese women were recruited, coerced or forced into the comfort stations in China and elsewhere.
By early 1938, it had become apparent to at least some in the Japanese military that employing local women as prostitutes was creating negative sentiment among the people of China, and again, presenting a potential challenge with local cooperation. Local women also posed a higher security risk, as their alliance was to the local military and community, rather than the Japanese or a foreign country outside of the region. Given these considerations, the military began to more actively import comfort women from out of the region, rather than employing locals in China. While a few of these women were Japanese, the majority were Korean, some, but not all, already residing in Japan. Around the same time the support among the military for the existence of comfort stations increased. Comfort stations were, according to military documents, established specifically to provide a sexual outlet for Japanese soldiers, in the mistaken belief that this would eliminate rape of local women by invading or occupying troops.
As of 1939, the Japanese army attempted to provide one comfort woman per 100 soldiers. This was a relatively low number, as there was later a goal of one woman per 35 soldiers. Surviving military documents refer to these women as “imported,” much as rations and other goods were. In some wartime documents comfort women were categorized with “war supplies” on shipping invoices. Based on documentary evidence, it is likely that most comfort women in China in 1939 were Korean.
The comfort stations were regulated by the military to ensure the safety and well being of the soldiers and officers using the facilities. Measures were taken to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including condoms and regular medical exams. Officially, the women were to receive food, shelter, clothing, medical care and wages for their services. While Japanese soldiers did pay a small amount to use the comfort stations, in many comfort stations throughout the Pacific the women were not paid at all and, in fact, the brothels provided a source of revenue for the military.
There were three types or categories of comfort stations. While the specific management of the comfort stations varied, all were under military control. In many cases, the comfort stations were largely controlled by the Japanese military police or the kempeitai, and these individuals were responsible for some of the most brutal atrocities of the war years, particularly acts of violence toward comfort women. While the army officially supervised the station, day-to-day management and conditions were, from 1938 onward, often in the hands of private operators, treated as paramilitary contractors. Some of these contractors were Japanese brothel owners, while others were retired military officers. Nearly all private brothel proprietors were Japanese. Since many stations were handled by private contractors, conditions varied from station to station.
The first type of comfort stations were permanent installations, located on military bases. While these were primarily staffed by Korean or Chinese women, some Japanese women also worked in these stations and served the officers on base. These comfort stations were housed in permanent buildings and typically had scheduled medical examinations by military doctors. The women were often entitled to military rations or fed in the military mess hall. Food and hygiene were adequate and a formal ticketing system was in place. These facilities were, on the whole, somewhat better managed, with access to medical treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, time off to recover from illness, and days off for menstruation.
A second type of comfort station was attached to large troop divisions and, in many cases, moved with the troops. Both permanent and large division comfort stations could be directly run by the military or by private proprietors under military supervision. Stations attached to large troop divisions were less well managed and were typically not staffed by Japanese women, but could request comfort women through the army supply system. Many were staffed by Korean women, who were used by both officers and enlisted men. Conditions varied in these comfort stations, but were often less well regulated and harsher.
The third type of comfort station was located in the war zones or along battlefields. These were poorly supervised and were managed by individual battalions, rather than private proprietors. While permanent and larger division comfort stations were under the control of military authorities and were staffed largely by Japanese or Korean women, local women were often coerced or forced into smaller battalion level comfort stations. Some battalion level stations did receive shipments of women or visits from women from other comfort stations. As the comfort station system expanded during World War II, this basic three-part structure remained consistent throughout the Pacific.
