State, Sex, and War: The Case of Japan’s Comfort Women

 

 

 Hello, everyone.

I want to begin by asking you to think about something truly profound and unsettling. Imagine a war, a conflict that brought unimaginable destruction and suffering across continents. Now, imagine a specific crime committed during that war – a crime so horrific, so widespread, that it affected hundreds of thousands of lives. Yet, for decades after the war ended, this crime was largely unspoken, unacknowledged, almost erased from public memory.

Today, we're going to tackle a subject that is, without doubt, one of the most sensitive and contentious issues in modern history: the Japanese military's "comfort women" system during the Asia-Pacific War.

To begin, what comes to mind when you hear the term "comfort women?"

Between 1931 and 1945, an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 women were mobilised, deceived, coerced, or forced into providing sexual services for the Imperial Japanese Army across East and Southeast Asia. These numbers, from historians like Yoshimi Yoshiaki and Yuki Tanaka, highlight the immense scale of this system. This issue raises profound questions that intertwine history, anthropology, law, moral philosophy, and memory studies. Today, we'll be arguing that this system must be understood as a state-organised structure of sexual violence that combined coercion, deception, and structural vulnerability, all in the service of a militarised empire. It was neither an incidental byproduct of war nor reducible to "ordinary prostitution". Instead, it reflected the Imperial Japanese state’s systematic attempts to discipline soldiers, control venereal disease, and prevent uncontrolled sexual violence, while simultaneously exploiting women from colonised and occupied populations.

 

Unpacking the Terms: "Comfort Women" vs. "Sexual Slavery"

Let’s delve deeper into the language used to describe this system.

Let's start with the language itself. Is the term "comfort women" an accurate descriptor for what these women endured, or does it, as some argue, obscure a far harsher reality?

The politics of terminology are central to this debate. The Japanese term ianfu literally translates as "comforting women". However, this is widely recognised as a euphemism that effectively sanitises the coercive realities of the system. Survivor activists and international bodies, such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in its 1996 Coomaraswamy Report, increasingly employ the term "sexual slavery" or "military sexual slavery" to more accurately reflect the nature of the system. Historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi concisely defined it as an "institutionalised sexual slavery system constructed by the Japanese military, in which women were mobilised against their will and deprived of freedom". I will primarily use the phrase "comfort-station system" descriptively for the institutional apparatus, but we will analyse it as a form of state-enforced sexual slavery, aligning with empirical evidence and survivor testimonies.

However, not everyone agrees. Some conservative scholars and politicians in Japan resist this framing, arguing that the system was an extension of licensed prostitution. This disagreement over words isn't just about semantics; it's about acknowledging the full extent of the crime, assigning responsibility, and addressing the immense pain of the survivors. For this blog, while we'll use "comfort-station system" descriptively for the facilities themselves, our analysis will treat it as a form of state-enforced sexual slavery, aligning with the overwhelming empirical evidence and the powerful testimonies of the survivors.

 

A Hidden History: The Post-War Silence

Now, let's explore a puzzling aspect of this history.

How could such a systematic and massive abuse of human rights, involving tens or hundreds of thousands of women, simply disappear from mainstream historical narratives for decades after World War II? What forces contributed to this profound silence?

In the immediate years following World War II, the comfort-station system was largely absent from the official narratives of the war. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial, was set up from 1946 to 1948 to prosecute high-ranking Japanese officials for aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. However, sexual slavery was only mentioned indirectly, often hidden under broader terms like "rape" or "ill-treatment of civilians". For example, when the Tribunal discussed the horrific Nanjing Massacre, it noted "widespread atrocities including mass rape," but it didn't specifically name or analyse the comfort-station system as a distinct state-organised crime.

While some local Allied war crimes trials did address the issue, these were primarily focused on cases where European women were victims, such as the Batavia War Crimes Trials in 1948 in the Dutch East Indies. Here, Japanese officers were prosecuted for forcing Dutch women into "comfort stations," and the court described these acts as "a systematic and enforced prostitution of women". But outside these specific trials, the issue quickly faded into silence.

This silence was due to several complex factors: the emerging Cold War politics shifted focus away from wartime atrocities, and perhaps most painfully, the survivors themselves were often reluctant to speak out due to immense shame and social stigma. As historian Yuki Tanaka powerfully noted, "In the early postwar years, there was little interest in the suffering of Asian women; the trials only took up cases involving Europeans. For decades, the voices of Korean, Chinese, and Filipino women were largely unheard". This heartbreaking oversight, where the suffering of Asian women was deemed less worthy of attention, is what anthropologists refer to as structural forgetting – an erasure of certain experiences that is produced and maintained by existing power structures.

 

Breaking the Silence: The 1990s Awakening

This long period of silence finally ended in the early 1990s.

What do you think it took for this deeply suppressed issue to re-enter public consciousness and ignite a global movement for justice after so many years of silence? What were the key events that broke this silence?

The turning point was a powerful convergence of forces: the incredible bravery of survivors speaking out, dedicated feminist scholarship, and the crucial discovery of official documents.

The watershed moment came in 1991 when Kim Hak-sun, a Korean survivor, publicly testified about her experiences in Seoul, breaking a decades-long silence. Her courageous testimony was a thunderclap. It galvanised other survivors to come forward and inspired organisations like the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (established in 1990) to begin weekly protests outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul. These became known as the "Wednesday Demonstrations", a powerful symbol of persistent demands for justice that continue to this day.

Crucially, this survivor activism was soon reinforced by irrefutable evidence from within Japanese archives. In 1992, historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki unearthed documents in the Japanese Defense Agency archives that proved direct military involvement in establishing and managing comfort stations. One particular Army memorandum from March 4, 1938, explicitly ordered the creation of "comfort facilities" to "maintain discipline among soldiers and prevent venereal disease".

These revelations were groundbreaking because they completely undermined claims that the system was simply a matter of private prostitution. As Yoshimi himself concluded, "The discovery of official documents demonstrated beyond doubt that the Japanese military itself was deeply involved, not merely private contractors. The comfort women system was designed and implemented as a military policy".

With international attention mounting, the Japanese government responded in 1993 by issuing the Kōno Statement. This was a major political milestone: it acknowledged military involvement and expressed "sincere apologies and remorse". However, the subsequent compensation efforts were controversial. The government channelled funds into a semi-private mechanism called the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF), established in 1995. Many survivors and activists criticised the AWF, arguing that it was insufficient because it avoided full state legal responsibility and, therefore, didn't constitute formal state reparations. This was a classic example of "apology plus" – an apology coupled with aid, but without the full legal acknowledgement of state responsibility that many demanded.

The Core Debate: Voluntariness vs. Coercion

The revelations of the 1990s and the subsequent government response brought the issue to the forefront, but also ignited intense debates.

Why do you think the question of whether these women were "voluntary prostitutes" or "forced sex slaves" became such a central and polarising point of contention, and what does this debate reveal about our understanding of consent in extreme circumstances?

By the late 1990s, scholarship and public debate were largely divided along several key questions:

1. Voluntariness vs. Coercion: This was, and still is, perhaps the most heated debate.
• Conservative scholars, argued that many women were recruited by brokers and engaged in prostitution voluntarily. They claimed that "the majority were professional prostitutes" and that estimates of 200,000 victims were exaggerated. This perspective tries to minimise the state's responsibility by portraying the women as willing participants.
• In stark contrast, feminist and empiricist historians, such as C. Sarah Soh, strongly emphasised structural coercion. They pointed to overwhelming factors like extreme poverty, the oppressive conditions of colonial domination, widespread deception (women being promised factory jobs or nursing roles), and outright abduction. As Soh clearly stated, "The dichotomy between ‘voluntary’ prostitutes and ‘forced’ sex slaves distorts the reality. The comfort women system must be analyzed within the coercive structures of colonialism and war". This means that even if a woman appeared to agree, her choice was made under such extreme duress that true "voluntariness" was impossible.
2. Numbers and Estimates: Disputes over the exact number of victims continued. Estimates ranged from Hata's 50,000 to Yoshimi and Tanaka's 200,000 or more. This difference often stemmed from different research methods – whether extrapolating from military records, venereal disease data, or survivor testimonies, and how they accounted for incomplete records.
3. Terminology and Legal Classification: The debate over whether "sexual slavery" is the correct term remains contentious. The UN's 1996 report affirmed it, but many Japanese conservative politicians still reject it, seeing it as damaging to national honour.
4. Apology and Reparations: Historians and activists continue to argue that full, state-level reparations are necessary. However, official Japanese responses often state that the issue was already settled through postwar treaties, such as the 1965 Korea-Japan normalisation treaty.

Anthropologists and feminist scholars have contributed significantly by placing the comfort women issue within broader patterns of gender, sexuality, and colonial modernity. Katharine Moon, for instance, argued that military prostitution systems weren't unique to Japan but were part of a continuum of "militarized sexual economies" seen even in US military bases in Korea. From an anthropological view, this system offers a lens into how states use and regulate sexuality as a tool of governance and imperial control.

Furthermore, these scholars emphasise the profound importance of testimony as a performance. Survivors' narratives are not just factual accounts; they are powerful acts of reclaiming dignity, of creating a "counter-memory" against official denials and historical erasure. As sociologist Pyong Gap Min explained, "When survivors testified, they were not simply providing evidence; they were publicly reconstituting themselves as subjects of history rather than objects of shame". Their voices, often emerging through layers of colonialism, patriarchy, and stigma, complicate any simplistic idea of "voluntariness."

 

Powerful Lenses: Understanding Systemic Violence (Theoretical Frameworks)

To truly grasp the horror and systemic nature of the comfort women system, we need to go beyond simply recounting events. We need robust theoretical frameworks that help us understand how such a system could be created and maintained.

How can we move past simple narratives of individual cruelty to understand the deep, structural forces that enabled this horrific system? What intellectual tools help us reveal the unseen layers of oppression at play?

Let's explore some key theoretical lenses that provide profound insights:

1. Structural Violence and Colonial Vulnerability: Anthropologist Paul Farmer defined structural violence as "social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way… embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world". This framework is absolutely central here. The women who became comfort women were often already poor, living under colonial rule, and socially marginalised. They were structurally vulnerable long before they were ever recruited or forced into the system. Think about it: Korean peasants struggling under Japanese colonial rule, Chinese civilians in occupied zones facing starvation and extreme violence, or impoverished Filipinas under Japanese wartime domination – all experienced forms of structural violence. These conditions made them highly susceptible to coercion, deception (like false promises of work), or outright abduction. So, even if some recruitment appeared "voluntary" on the surface, it was always mediated by overwhelming economic desperation, the oppressive reality of colonial subjugation, and rigid patriarchal norms. The comfort-station system didn't just exploit existing prostitution; it systematically intensified and deepened it within a brutal framework of militarised colonial domination.
2. Biopolitics and the Militarised Body: French philosopher Michel Foucault's concept of biopolitics – the state's regulation of populations through the control of bodies – offers another crucial insight. The Japanese military explicitly justified comfort stations as a way to control soldiers' sexual behaviour and prevent venereal disease. This wasn't just about individual soldiers; it was about managing the military as a whole population. Weekly medical inspections, mandatory (often painful and humiliating) treatments, and even forced abortions exemplify how women's bodies were subjected to military biopolitical management. A 1938 Army directive starkly stated: "Medical officers are to conduct regular examinations of all women, and commanders are to ensure immediate treatment of infected persons, to prevent disruption of military effectiveness". Here, the women's bodies were not just commodified for sexual services; they were disciplined and controlled as instruments for the military's health and efficiency. This perfectly illustrates what philosopher Giorgio Agamben called bare life: existence reduced to mere biological management, stripped of any political agency or human dignity.
3. Militarised Sexual Economies: Building on Cynthia Enloe's pioneering work, "Bananas, Beaches, and Bases," we can understand the comfort-station system within a broader anthropology of militarised sexual economies. Armies throughout history have regulated or tolerated sexual labour, but Japan's system was distinct due to its bureaucratic scope, vast geographic spread, and deep integration into military planning. As historian Yuki Tanaka highlights, "The Japanese military did not simply tolerate prostitution; it actively created a system of sexual slavery across its empire, incorporating it into its military apparatus". Comparing it to other historical instances, like US military base prostitution in Korea or even Nazi camp brothels, helps us see both the unique specifics of the Japanese case and the general pattern: militarised sexuality is often a structural, rather than accidental, feature of modern warfare and empire.
4. Gender, Agency, and the Problem of Consent: The persistent debate about whether these women were "sex slaves" or "prostitutes" often oversimplifies a complex reality of agency under constraint. The question of "Can the subaltern speak?" posed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is highly relevant here: the voices of survivors emerge through layers of colonialism, patriarchy, and immense stigma, making any simplistic reading of "voluntariness" deeply problematic. C. Sarah Soh again emphasises that while some women might have entered the system through existing prostitution networks, their choices were fundamentally structured by overpowering economic and patriarchal coercion. This aligns with feminist theories that recognise "constrained agency": actions that are technically "chosen" but only within extremely oppressive structures. Therefore, our moral and historical analysis must focus less on whether women "agreed" and more on the coercive conditions that severely limited and shaped their choices.
5. Memory, Testimony, and Counter-History: Anthropological theory also underscores testimony as a powerful social practice. Survivors' accounts are not merely historical facts; they are profound acts of reclaiming their agency and actively resisting erasure. Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory helps explain why the comfort women issue remains politically charged decades later: it's about how trauma and memory are transmitted across generations, with descendants and activists actively sustaining memory practices. Survivors' testimonies often blend factual recall with emotional silences, evasions, or metaphorical language. As anthropologist Veena Das observed, trauma sometimes appears in the "folds of the ordinary" rather than being directly recounted. Interpreting these testimonies requires deep attentiveness to what is unsaid, fragmented, or embodied in their narratives. These stories become a powerful "counter-history" against official denials.
6. Moral Philosophy and Collective Responsibility: Finally, philosophical approaches to moral responsibility are crucial for evaluating the legacy of this system. Hannah Arendt's idea of the "banality of evil" reminds us that many perpetrators—officers, doctors, brokers—were often ordinary individuals following bureaucratic routines, not necessarily sadistic monsters. Iris Marion Young's theory of the social connection model of responsibility suggests that responsibility for structural injustices doesn't rest only with individual perpetrators. Instead, it extends to institutions, states, and societies that benefit from or sustain these unjust structures. Applying this to the comfort women case means that debates over apology and reparations cannot be simplified to whether individual soldiers committed crimes. The system profoundly implicates the Japanese state, its military, the private contractors involved, and even the postwar political structures that denied survivors recognition for so long.

These frameworks together allow us to move beyond simplistic labels and instead examine the comfort-station system as a complex historical institution, deeply embedded in colonial domination, military biopolitics, and gendered violence, while also engaging with the powerful voices of survivors and the urgent ethical questions of justice and redress.

 

From Seeds to System: Historical Origins and Development

Now, let's trace the historical journey of this system.

Where did this monstrous system truly come from? Was it a sudden invention in the middle of the war, or did it have deeper roots within Japanese society, its military culture, and its colonial policies?

The comfort women system did not emerge out of nowhere. It developed from existing Japanese military culture, established colonial administrative practices, and regulated prostitution systems that had been in place since the Meiji period (1868-1912). Understanding these beginnings is vital to seeing how military sexual slavery became horrifyingly normalised within the Imperial Japanese armed forces and colonial administration.

1. Imperial Japanese Military Culture and Sexuality: The Imperial Japanese military's understanding of sexuality was profoundly shaped by a modernised interpretation of bushido, the traditional samurai code. This ideology, while idealising values like loyalty and honour, ironically also sanctioned sexual violence as an expression of masculine dominance. It created a contradictory military masculinity that viewed sexual conquest as both necessary for soldier morale and symbolic of national power. For example, Emperor Meiji’s 1882 "Instructions for Military Men" demanded moral rectitude but also absolute obedience to orders. This framework allowed commanders to justify the comfort women system as necessary for discipline and consistent with imperial will. Former Japanese soldiers revealed how this worked in practice: they were told that "using comfort women was different from rape because it was organized by the military for the good of the Imperial Army. It was presented as a duty, not a personal indulgence". This reinterpretation of duty was a terrifying distortion that legitimised systematic abuse.
2. Pre-existing Licensed Prostitution Systems: The comfort women system directly built upon Japan's existing framework of regulated prostitution, established during the Meiji period. The licensed quarter system (yukaku) involved government oversight, medical examinations, police registration, and debt bondage contracts that effectively trapped women in prostitution. Historian Garon Sheldon noted that this created a "bureaucratic apparatus for managing female sexuality that could be readily adapted for military purposes". Crucially, this existing yukaku system already included Korean and Chinese women by the 1920s, normalising the sexual exploitation of colonised women. The Karayuki-san phenomenon – where Japanese women were trafficked throughout Asia as prostitutes – also provided established networks of sexual commerce that military authorities later exploited. So, the infrastructure and precedents for exploiting women were already well-established.
3. Medical Discourse and Venereal Disease Control: Japanese military medical discourse provided a crucial justification. Military Surgeon General Koizumi Chikahiko’s 1925 study, "Venereal Disease Prevention in the Imperial Army," argued that "unregulated sexual contact between soldiers and civilian women poses unacceptable risks to military readiness" and recommended "establishment of medically supervised facilities under direct military control". This medical rationalisation served to disguise the exploitative nature of the system. As medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman observed, this medicalisation "transformed rape into treatment, violence into hygiene, and exploitation into military necessity". The systematic medical examination of comfort women, documented in surviving military reports, created a false veneer of scientific legitimacy for sexual slavery.
4. The Shanghai Incident (1932) and First Documented Comfort Stations: The earliest documented military comfort stations were established in Shanghai following the January 28 Incident of 1932, when Japanese forces attacked Chinese positions. A March 1932 report from Lieutenant Colonel Okamura Yasuji to the War Ministry explicitly described establishing these facilities in Shanghai's Hongkou district, directly linking it to preventing rape. His report stated: "Due to the large number of rapes committed by Imperial Army soldiers in Shanghai, which have damaged the army's reputation and interfered with military operations, comfort facilities have been established under direct military supervision". This document is historically vital because it acknowledges that Japanese soldiers were committing widespread sexual violence. The military's solution, however, was not to stop the violence but to institutionalise sexual slavery as a form of damage control. These early Shanghai stations set the blueprint: direct military administration, medical examination of women, regulated pricing, proximity to military bases, and recruitment through deception and coercion.
5. Early Development in Manchuria and China – The Kwantung Army's Role: Following the Manchurian Incident in September 1931, the Kwantung Army – a powerful, semi-autonomous Japanese army in Manchuria – became the primary force behind the expansion of comfort stations throughout occupied China. Their distance from Tokyo gave them considerable freedom to develop and implement these policies with minimal oversight. Directives from Kwantung Army Chief of Staff Itagaki Seishiro from 1933-1934 show systematic planning, stating: "In order to maintain discipline and prevent the spread of venereal disease, comfort facilities shall be established in all major garrison towns under the direct supervision of military police". Comfort women were even considered "part of military supplies, like ammunition or food rations", and their procurement and distribution were handled through the same logistical channels. This shows how deeply integrated sexual slavery became into military operations. The South Manchuria Railway Company (Mantetsu), a key instrument of Japanese economic colonisation, also provided crucial logistical support, transporting "comfort women" alongside other military supplies. The puppet state of Manchukuo even created legal frameworks, like the 1934 "Regulations Concerning Special Service Women," to provide a legal cover for these trafficking operations.
6. Institutionalisation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1938): The horrific Nanjing Massacre in December 1937, where mass rapes (estimated 20,000–80,000 cases) by Japanese soldiers shocked international opinion, was a major turning point. In response, the Japanese high command accelerated the establishment of comfort stations to channel soldiers’ sexual activity away from civilian populations. A directive from the Ministry of the Army on March 4, 1938, explicitly stated: "In order to maintain discipline in the occupied areas, prevent venereal diseases, and safeguard the honor of the military, it is necessary to establish comfort facilities without delay". By late 1938, comfort stations were widespread in major Chinese cities, often staffed by Korean women recruited through deceptive contracts.
7. Expansion across East and Southeast Asia (1939–1942): As the Sino-Japanese War escalated into the broader Pacific conflict, the comfort system expanded dramatically. Between 1939 and 1942, facilities appeared everywhere from Manchuria and Taiwan to the Philippines, Burma, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), and the Pacific Islands. This massive logistical operation involved the military police (Kenpeitai) supervising transport, brokers recruiting women with false promises (factory jobs, nursing), and local collaborators facilitating recruitment. In occupied Indonesia, even Dutch women—both civilians and prisoners of war—were forced into these stations. By 1942, Japanese military authorities themselves estimated over 20,000 women were in the system, though historians suggest the true figure was much higher, ranging between 50,000 and 200,000 across all occupied territories.
8. Structure and Regulation of Comfort Stations: While not all comfort stations were identical, they followed recognisable patterns:
• Ownership and Management: Some were directly run by the military, others by private contractors under strict military supervision.
• Segregation by Ethnicity: There was a clear racial hierarchy. Japanese women often held higher status; Korean and Chinese women were relegated to lower categories; and European women (Dutch, Eurasian) were typically segregated for "officer-class" clientele.
• Medical Control: Weekly venereal disease examinations were compulsory and often violent. A 1938 Army memorandum stressed: "Infected women are to be immediately quarantined and treated, regardless of consent".
• Surveillance: Women’s movements were severely restricted, with barbed wire, armed guards, and prohibitions against leaving without escort. This meticulous bureaucratic regulation underscores the biopolitical logic we discussed earlier: women’s bodies were managed as military resources.
9. Wartime Peaks and Geographic Reach (1942–1945): At its peak during World War II, the comfort-station system spanned the entire Japanese empire, from New Guinea to Micronesia and Okinawa. Survivor testimonies highlight the extreme variations but consistent coercion:
• In Burma, Korean survivors reported servicing 20–30 soldiers daily under duress.
• In the Philippines, Maria Rosa Henson testified: "I was 16 years old when the Japanese soldiers took me. For nine months, I was raped by soldiers every day".
• In Indonesia, Jan Ruff-O’Herne recalled: "We were lined up and told we were now the property of the Imperial Japanese Army. I was 21". These accounts confirm the widespread scale of coercion and sexual slavery, affecting women of diverse nationalities and backgrounds.
10. Collapse and Destruction of Evidence (1945): As Japan faced defeat in 1945, military authorities systematically attempted to dismantle the system and erase its traces. Many women were simply abandoned, others were murdered, or left destitute in unfamiliar territories. Crucially, records were destroyed systematically. A 1945 Army order explicitly instructed: "Documents relating to comfort facilities are to be burned without delay". This deliberate erasure severely complicated historical reconstruction for decades, and the deep stigma ensured that many survivors remained silent.

So, what we see here is a system that developed gradually but deliberately – from small brothels in Shanghai to a vast, bureaucratised institution spanning an entire empire. It was not an accidental consequence of war but a calculated policy, deeply integrated into Japan’s military strategy, reflecting colonial domination, biopolitical control, and the instrumentalisation of women as wartime resources.

 

Faces of Suffering: Lived Experiences of Comfort Women

Now that we understand how the system originated and expanded, let's turn our attention to the most heartbreaking aspect: the actual, daily lives of the women trapped within these comfort stations.

What was it truly like for these women, day in and day out, to be caught in this horrific system? How were they brought into it, and what unimaginable brutalities did they endure?

Their lived experiences reveal a consistent pattern of deception, coercion, daily sexual violence, and severe health exploitation under strict military control.

1. Recruitment and Deception: The entry methods varied, but deception, coercion, and outright force were overwhelmingly common. Many women were lured by false promises of respectable employment. For example, Korean survivor Kim Hak-sun, who broke the silence in 1991, testified: "A man came to our house, saying I could work in a factory. I was only 17. Instead, I was taken to China, and there the soldiers used me". Similarly, in the Philippines, Maria Rosa Henson recalled: "The Japanese told me I would work as a maid. Instead, they brought me to a garrison where I was raped by soldiers every day". For Dutch women in Indonesia, many from civilian internment camps, the conscription was often direct and brutal. Jan Ruff-O’Herne described: "We were lined up, chosen like cattle, and told we belonged to the Japanese Army. There was no choice". These testimonies clearly show how "recruitment" was deeply embedded in structures of colonial power, extreme poverty, and wartime occupation.
2. Daily Routine and Sexual Violence: Survivors describe a horrifyingly regimented and brutal schedule. Comfort women often serviced 10–30 soldiers daily, and sometimes even up to 40–50 on Sundays during intense battle campaigns. The U.S. Psychological Warfare Team’s 1945 report on Korean women in Burma corroborated this, recording "The average number of men served by one girl per day was 20–30. On Sundays, this increased to 40–50". These were constant rapes, often framed as a "duty" for the soldiers, all under strict schedules, treating the women as mere military property. Resistance, even a simple refusal, was met with severe punishment, including brutal beatings and torture. One Chinese survivor, quoted by historian Su Zhiliang, tragically recalled: "I was only 15. The soldiers came in groups. When I refused, they beat me with the butt of a rifle. Afterward, I could not walk". The physical and psychological toll was unimaginable.
3. Health, Disease, and Medical Control: While the military tried to justify the system partly as a measure against venereal disease, the reality for the women was catastrophic.
• Weekly venereal disease inspections were compulsory, often conducted violently and entirely without consent.
• Infected women were immediately quarantined and subjected to painful, unsafe treatments, including mercury injections.
• Pregnancies were common, leading to frequently forced abortions, performed under incredibly unsafe conditions, often resulting in severe injury or death. A 1938 Army memorandum chillingly stated: "Women infected with syphilis or gonorrhea must be confined and treated immediately, regardless of their wishes, to preserve the fighting strength of the troops". For the women, this so-called "medical control" was another layer of violation, reducing them to mere instruments of military hygiene. Survivors often recalled these inspections as a "second form of violation".
4. Coping Strategies and Small Acts of Resistance: Despite the overwhelming control and brutality, the women sometimes found subtle ways to resist or cope.
• Solidarity: Many testimonies speak of women caring for each other, sharing what little food they had, and helping the sick. This sense of shared suffering fostered vital bonds.
• Feigning Illness: Some women pretended to be sick to avoid the daily rapes, though this often led to punishment.
• Escape Attempts: A few brave women attempted to escape, but most were recaptured or tragically killed.
• Memory Work: Crucially, many survivors later described practices like singing, praying, or mentally detaching themselves from their bodies and circumstances as survival strategies. Korean survivor Kang Duk-kyung recalled: "At night, we whispered to each other that someday we would return home. Those words kept us alive". These small acts of defiance and resilience remind us of their enduring human spirit, even under conditions of near-total domination.
5. Aftermath: Stigma and Silence: After the war ended, for decades, returning survivors faced immense stigma and profound silence. Many were tragically ostracised by their own families and communities, branded as "spoiled" or "disgraced". Kim Hak-sun, the first to speak publicly, described her agony: "For decades, I could tell no one. My family would not have accepted me. It was as if I had no place in the world". This silence reflected not only deep personal trauma but also the heavy weight of patriarchal and colonial norms in their societies. As anthropologist Veena Das argues, violence often "sinks into the recesses of everyday life" rather than being openly discussed or resolved. For some, however, later activism provided a path to reclaim their voice, transforming private suffering into public testimony.

So, the lived experiences of comfort women reveal a pattern of relentless deception, coercion, daily sexual violence, and severe health exploitation under strict military control. Their narratives are not just stories of physical suffering but also of the moral injuries caused by stigma and silence. Yet, they also powerfully document resilience, solidarity, and the eventual, courageous reclamation of their voices.

 

The Targeted: Demographic Analysis and Victim Profiles

Now, let's address a critical question:

Who exactly were these women? Was their recruitment random, or were specific groups systematically targeted based on their nationality, age, or socioeconomic vulnerability? What does this tell us about the nature of the system?

Analysing the demographics of comfort women is challenging due to the systematic destruction of military records, the intense stigma faced by survivors, and the vast geographic spread of the system. However, by combining survivor testimonies, military documents, postwar investigations, and demographic modelling, scholars have built increasingly reliable profiles that reveal the massive scope and chilling targeting patterns of Japanese military sexual slavery.

1. Estimated Numbers and Nationality Breakdown: The total number of comfort women is still debated, with estimates from 50,000 to over 400,000. However, historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi's estimate of approximately 200,000 women forced into comfort stations between 1932-1945 is widely accepted as a reasonable estimate. The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, using demographic modelling, estimates between 140,000-200,000 women. The overwhelming majority were Korean, accounting for 80-85% (roughly 160,000-170,000 women). Chinese women were the second-largest group at 10-12% (20,000-24,000). Smaller numbers came from the Philippines (4,000-6,000), Indonesia (2,000-4,000), Japan (2,000-4,000), and other regions like Burma and the Dutch East Indies (2,000-4,000 including Dutch women). Why such a disproportionate number of Korean women? This reflects several critical factors: Korea was a Japanese colony, meaning Japan had established administrative infrastructure there for easy recruitment; its geographic proximity to major military operations; the immense economic desperation created by Japanese colonial policies; and a cultural familiarity that facilitated efficient recruitment. This systematic exploitation of Korean women had a devastating demographic impact, representing about 1% of Korea's total female population aged 14-30 during that period. Modern scholarship recognises this as a systematic assault on Korean reproductive capacity and social structure, genocidal in its nature.
2. Regional Distribution: The geographic distribution closely mirrored Japanese military deployment:
• China Theater (1937-1945): 120,000-140,000 comfort women, mainly Korean (85%) and Chinese (12%).
• Southeast Asia Theater (1942-1945): 40,000-50,000, mainly Korean (70%) and local populations.
• Pacific Islands Theater (1942-1945): 15,000-20,000, mostly Korean and Japanese.
• Manchuria and Korea (1932-1945): 25,000-30,000, primarily Korean (95%)
3. Age Demographics and Recruitment Patterns: Analysis of testimonies and military records consistently shows the systematic targeting of young women and girls. The average age at recruitment was about 20 years old, but a significant 25% were between 14-17 years old, which means approximately 50,000 minors were forced into this system. For Korean women, 60% were recruited before age 21, and the youngest documented case was an 11-year-old girl. This preference for young women was driven by military demand: they were considered less likely to carry venereal diseases, more physically capable, and more psychologically malleable for control.
4. Duration of Forced Service and Mortality Rates: The average duration of service was relatively short: 70% served 1-3 years. This short duration doesn't reflect an easy departure, but rather extremely high mortality rates, occasional successful escapes, or liberation by Allied forces. Mortality rates were tragically high. Researchers estimate that approximately 75% of comfort women died during or shortly after their forced service. This is an exceptionally high mortality rate, far exceeding civilian populations and comparable to that of prisoners of war or concentration camp inmates. The primary causes of death were: disease (40%) due to inadequate care and infections, violence (25%) from murder, beatings, or suicide, and medical complications (20%) from botched abortions or medical neglect. This horrific toll reflects the extreme brutality and dehumanisation inherent in the system.
5. Socioeconomic Backgrounds: The demographic profile clearly shows that recruitment was not random but systematically targeted the most vulnerable segments of society.
• Geographic Origin: 65% of all comfort women came from rural agricultural communities. This was particularly true in Korea, where Japanese colonial agricultural policies had created widespread rural poverty.
• Economic Status: 75% of victims came from families in severe economic distress. Indicators like family debt (70%), food insecurity (60%), housing instability (45%), and high medical expenses (35%) were systematically exploited by recruiters promising steady wages. Korean survivor Pak Ok-ryun explained: "My younger brother was sick and needed medicine we couldn't afford. When the recruiter offered advance payment plus regular wages, it seemed like a miracle".
• Educational Attainment: 60% had primary education or less, making them less equipped to recognise deceptive recruitment tactics or resist coercion.
• Family Structure: 45% came from single-parent or guardian families, making them even more economically and socially vulnerable. Korean survivor Kil Won-ok's testimony illustrates this: "My father died when I was young, leaving my mother to support four children alone. When Korean men offered work in a Japanese factory, my mother thought it was the answer to our prayers".
• Previous Employment: Most were engaged in economically precarious work like agricultural labour (40%) or domestic service (25%), jobs with minimal social protection.
• Social Marginalisation: Beyond economic factors, recruitment also targeted socially marginalised populations, including ethnic minorities, religious minorities, and those from families with suspected anti-Japanese sentiments. These communities had fewer resources to resist, and their disappearance was less likely to cause social outcry.
6. Dutch and Other European Women: While primarily Asian women were targeted, an estimated 200-400 Dutch and other European women were also forced into sexual slavery, mainly in the Dutch East Indies. The Semarang Case in Java is well-documented, where 35 Dutch women were forced into stations in 1944. Survivor Jan Ruff O'Herne recalled: "We were taken from civilian internment camps and told we would work as office clerks and interpreters. Instead, we were forced into brothels run by the Japanese military". Interestingly, the sexual slavery of European women sometimes led to court-martial proceedings against Japanese officers, indicating that it violated military regulations that were considered acceptable for Asian women. This highlights the racialised nature of the system.
7. Japanese Women: Volunteers vs. Coerced Participation: An estimated 2,000-4,000 Japanese women also worked in comfort stations, the smallest national group. About 60% were professional prostitutes recruited for military service, 25% were "economic volunteers" due to necessity, and 15% were coerced through deception or family pressure. While they experienced exploitation, Japanese women typically received better treatment, higher compensation, and greater agency compared to colonial subjects. This reveals the intersection of gender oppression and imperial privilege, even within the system itself. Japanese survivor Shirota Suzuko recalled: "I volunteered because my family needed money, but I didn't understand what the conditions would be like. Even as a Japanese woman, I was treated little better than a slave".

The demographic analysis reveals that comfort women recruitment was not random. It systematically targeted specific populations based on age, nationality, economic status, education, family structure, and social marginalisation. This systematic targeting, especially of young Korean women from rural, economically distressed families, represents a form of "demographic warfare" that deliberately weakened the social and economic capacity of colonised populations. The high mortality rates and permanent displacement of survivors created long-term impacts that affected entire communities, demonstrating that the comfort women system meets contemporary definitions of genocide and crimes against humanity under international law.

 

The State's Hand: Legal, Political, and Institutional Frameworks

We've established the scale and the victims. Now, let's turn to a crucial question about responsibility:

How did a modern state like Japan, with its bureaucracy and legal system, manage to create and sustain such a comprehensive, brutal system of sexual slavery? What laws, institutions, and individuals were involved, and how did they operate?

Contrary to initial postwar claims that the comfort-station system was a private venture, irrefutable documentary evidence confirms the direct and deep involvement of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. This wasn't a rogue operation; it was a state-sponsored crime.

1. The Japanese State and Military as Central Architects: Military directives meticulously regulated every aspect: recruitment, transportation, station management, medical inspections, and even the pricing of sexual services. A Ministry of the Army memorandum from 1938 explicitly ordered the establishment of comfort stations "to prevent incidents such as rape and maintain discipline among troops". The Kenpeitai (military police) played a crucial role, supervising recruitment and overseeing local contractors to ensure a steady supply of women from Korea, Taiwan, and other occupied territories. Even military doctors were officially appointed to each station, reporting to higher command on venereal disease rates and the "productivity" of the women. This extensive bureaucratic involvement confirms that the system was not peripheral; it was structurally integrated into military planning at the highest levels.
2. Legal Frameworks in Japan and the Colonies – A Web of Contradictions: The comfort-station system exploited a complex web of contradictions within Japanese and colonial legal orders.
• Regulated Prostitution in Japan: Prostitution was legally tolerated in Japan under a licensing system. The military simply adapted this existing framework abroad, presenting comfort stations as "licensed brothels" rather than sites of coercion.
• Colonial Laws: In colonies like Korea and Taiwan, Japanese authorities extended this metropolitan licensing model. This enabled systematic recruitment, often with the collaboration of local Korean police and officials, blurring the line between state coercion and private profiteering.
• International Law: Crucially, Japan had ratified the 1921 League of Nations Convention on the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children in 1925, which explicitly prohibited forced recruitment. Yet, military directives routinely violated this international treaty. This blatant legal contradiction allowed Japanese officials to cloak sexual slavery under a façade of legality, while simultaneously violating both their domestic promises and international obligations.
3. Contractors, Brokers, and Local Collaborators – The Intermediaries of Abuse: The recruitment process was facilitated by a complex network of intermediaries:
• Private Brokers: These were often Japanese or Korean men who tricked women with false promises of well-paying jobs in factories, restaurants, or hospitals, only to funnel them directly into comfort stations.
• Colonial Collaborators: Local figures such as Korean landlords, Chinese businessmen, and even Filipino village heads sometimes acted as recruiters, benefiting financially from this horrific trade.
• Licensed Prostitutes: Existing prostitution networks in Japan and Korea were also absorbed into military needs, with brothel owners contracted to provide women overseas. A 1938 police report from Keijō (Seoul) recorded the arrest of brokers who had recruited "over 30 women with false promises of work abroad," clearly illustrating how deception was not only tolerated but effectively institutionalised.
4. Military Control and Bureaucratisation – Totalitarian Management: Once inside the comfort stations, women were subjected to meticulous, totalitarian regulation:
• Passbooks: Each woman was forced to carry a "comfort woman register," which recorded medical inspections and treatments, further dehumanising them.
• Pricing Systems: Fees for their services were standardised according to military rank; officers paid more, enlisted men less. Records from Burma show set prices ranging from 1 yen for soldiers to 3 yen for officers.
• Discipline: Military police strictly enforced rules, brutally punishing any "insubordination" and tightly controlling the women's movements. These bureaucratic systems reveal how women’s sexual labour was meticulously commodified and militarised, reducing them to mere instruments for soldier morale and disease management.
5. International Diplomacy and Institutional Secrecy: As the system expanded, it did raise some diplomatic concerns. Chinese and Western observers condemned the sexual violence, and neutral powers occasionally protested. Japanese diplomats even advised the army to exercise discretion. A 1938 Foreign Ministry memo warned that "indiscriminate abduction of women in China is causing resentment and damaging Japan’s international reputation". Yet, instead of halting the system, the state responded by trying to regularise it further, cloaking the coercion in euphemisms like "licensed comfort houses". Thus, institutional secrecy and euphemism became deliberate strategies to sustain the system while trying to deflect external criticism.
6. Postwar Legal Evasions – Decades of Denial: After Japan’s surrender in 1945, officials engaged in a massive, systematic destruction of documents related to the comfort stations. At the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (1946–48), the comfort-station system received limited attention, overshadowed by other charges. Crucially, no high-ranking Japanese official was convicted specifically for the comfort women system, and responsibility was often wrongly displaced onto private contractors, despite overwhelming evidence of military oversight. Postwar Japanese governments denied state involvement for decades until Yoshimi Yoshiaki’s discoveries in the 1990s. This deliberate legal evasion left survivors without recognition or reparations for nearly half a century.

The comfort-station system was profoundly institutional, created by military directives, enabled by colonial legal frameworks, meticulously managed through bureaucracy, and sustained by a network of brokers and collaborators. It was a system where legality and illegality shockingly coexisted – licensed prostitution was weaponised to mask sexual slavery, while international treaties were simply ignored. The deliberate destruction of evidence and decades of denial after the war only deepened this institutional impunity.

 

Empty Words: The Rationales and Their Deception

The Imperial Japanese Army presented specific, pragmatic reasons for establishing these comfort stations.

The military claimed these stations were necessary to prevent rape, control disease, boost morale, and even prevent espionage. How do these justifications stand up to scrutiny? Were they truly effective, or were they merely a cover for something far more sinister?

Let's critically examine each of these stated rationales:

1. Preventing Random Rape and Anti-Japanese Resistance:
• The Stated Rationale: Military commanders, especially after the horrifying Nanjing Massacre, argued that providing a dedicated sexual outlet would curb random sexual violence against civilians. They believed this would reduce local resistance and protect Japan's image of leading a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".
• The Historical Reality: This rationale was a complete failure and a lie. The system did not replace random rape; it coexisted with it. Widespread sexual violence by Japanese troops continued throughout the war across all territories. The comfort women system didn't eliminate the crime of rape; it tragically institutionalised it. Furthermore, the women in the stations were almost exclusively from occupied populations, meaning the system became a centralised, military-controlled tool for the mass rape of colonised and enemy women, rather than preventing the act itself. Anthropologically, it simply transformed a "disorderly" and visible form of violence into an "orderly," militarised form that asserted dominance and terrorised subjugated populations.
2. Controlling Venereal Disease (VD):
• The Stated Rationale: The army claimed deep concern about VD incapacitating entire units, threatening combat effectiveness. They implemented mandatory medical inspections for the comfort women to keep soldiers healthy.
• The Historical Reality: This rationale exposes the starkest hypocrisy of the entire system. The so-called "hygiene" measures were entirely for the benefit of the soldier, not the woman. Inspections were crude, often painful, and focused only on identifying already infected women to remove them. They did absolutely nothing to prevent transmission from soldiers to women or to treat the women humanely. In fact, the system itself was the primary vector for spreading VD, as soldiers were almost never subjected to mandatory inspections or treatment before visiting a station. The medical logic was not only flawed but completely inverted: it created a massive reservoir of disease while offering a false sense of security to the troops.
3. Boosting Troop Morale:
• The Stated Rationale: The military viewed sexual service as a necessary reward for men enduring the hardships of war, a way to maintain their fighting spirit and morale.
• The Historical Reality: This was probably the most genuine motivation from the command's perspective. However, it was built on a profoundly dehumanising view of both soldiers and women. It reduced male sexuality to a primal urge that needed to be serviced, and it reduced women to disposable instruments for military efficiency. Anthropologically, the comfort station system was a mechanism to manage the male military body, channeling its aggression and reinforcing a warrior identity built on domination and access to the female body. The "morale" offered was not just about sexual release, but about reinforcing the brutal power dynamics of conquest.
4. Preventing Espionage:
• The Stated Rationale: By keeping soldiers away from local brothels and civilian populations, the military believed it could better control information and prevent secrets from being leaked to spies.
• The Historical Reality: While this might have held a theoretical grain of logic, it was largely negated by the fact that the comfort women themselves, often from conquered nations, were placed in intimate contact with soldiers who might well divulge information. More importantly, this rationale again highlights the extreme objectification of women: they were seen as a secure, military-controlled resource, akin to safe rations or ammunition, rather than human beings.

To what extent were these stated military rationales justified?

Based on all the evidence, the stated military rationales were not justified.

• They were ineffective: The goals of preventing rape and controlling VD were clearly not achieved. The system failed by its own stated pragmatic measures.
• They were logically and morally bankrupt: Even if they had been effective, the ends could never justify the means. The calculated enslavement of hundreds of thousands of women is a crime against humanity that no military objective can ever justify.
• They served as a façade: Ultimately, these rationales provided a bureaucratic, clinical language – using terms like "hygiene," "morale," "discipline" – to sanitise and legitimise a system of profound brutality. They allowed the military bureaucracy to function without confronting the horrific human reality of its actions.

In essence, these stated rationales were a form of organisational self-deception and propaganda. They provided a "practical" framework for officers to implement and manage a system that was, at its core, an expression of the Imperial Japanese Army's extreme militarism, its deep-seated misogyny, and its racist, colonial worldview that viewed certain populations as expendable tools for its ambitions.

Conclusion: A Dual Tragedy, A Modern Atrocity

We have covered a vast and difficult terrain today. Let me bring together our findings into a comprehensive conclusion.

So, after examining every facet – its origins, its scale, the victims, and the mechanisms – what is the ultimate truth about the comfort women system, and why is this history so vital for us to understand today?

As an anthropologist and historian, my conclusion on the comfort women system is a multi-layered analysis that synthesises all the evidence into a broader understanding of its meaning and legacy. It represents a profound convergence of state power, militarism, colonialism, and gender oppression.

1. It Was a State-Orchestrated System of Sexual Slavery. This is the foundational historical conclusion. The comfort system was not a spontaneous phenomenon or simply a commercial enterprise. It was a bureaucratically organised, military-operated instrument of war. The overwhelming evidence from military directives, logistical reports, and official memos proves direct involvement at the highest levels of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy. This elevates it from the realm of a wartime atrocity to a state-sponsored crime. The system was conceived, rationalised, and implemented by the institutions of the state, making the Japanese government of that era uniquely and fundamentally responsible.
2. It Was a Logical and Brutal Extension of Japanese Colonialism and Wartime Ideology. Anthropologically, the system cannot be understood in isolation; it was an integral and brutal extension of Japan’s imperial project and its deeply embedded racial hierarchy.
• Colonial Logic: The deliberate targeting of women from Korea, Taiwan, and other occupied territories reveals a system built on colonial domination. The bodies of colonised women were seen as disposable resources, to be mobilised for the war effort, while simultaneously protecting the perceived "purity" and social order of the Japanese homeland.
• Militarised Masculinity: The system was specifically designed to service a particular model of the imperial soldier – one whose aggression, sacrifice, and loyalty were to be rewarded with controlled access to women's bodies. It reinforced a warrior identity predicated on domination and control over conquered peoples and their territories.
• Dehumanisation: The meticulous bureaucratic management – including medical inspections, rigid schedules, and standardised pricing – required the complete dehumanisation of the women. They were classified and treated as mere military supplies, a category of logistics. This psychological distancing was absolutely essential for the system's operators to function without confronting the profound moral horror of their actions.
3. It Represents a "Modern" Atrocity. In many ways, this system was horrifically modern. It utilised the tools of a modern state and military – bureaucracy, efficient logistics, medical rationalisation, and sophisticated transportation networks – to facilitate pre-modern brutality on an industrial scale. This chilling combination of administrative efficiency with extreme human rights abuse is a defining characteristic of 20th-century total war and state crime, placing it in a category with other systematic atrocities of the era. It was, truly, a perversion of modernity itself.
4. Its Legacy is Defined by the Struggle for Memory vs. Erasure. Historically, the actual event is only half the story. The decades of postwar silence, deliberate denial, and obfuscation created a "second violation" for the survivors.
• Historical Erasure: The systematic destruction of documents and the official silence conspired to actively erase this crime from history. This was not a passive forgetting but a calculated process of concealment.
• The Battle for Narrative: The emergence of survivors' testimonies in the late 20th century sparked a fundamental battle over the historical narrative. Was this a "military comfort system" or a "system of sexual slavery"? This struggle profoundly moved the issue from academic archives into the realms of international politics, human rights law, and gender studies.
• A Living History: The comfort women issue is not a closed historical chapter. It remains a raw, open wound precisely because the fight for a universally acknowledged historical truth – one that fully accepts the state's responsibility and the victims' experience as slaves, not mere labourers – is still fiercely contested. The ongoing political debates and tensions we see in East Asia today are a direct continuation of this unresolved historical event.

Therefore, my final conclusion is that the comfort women system was a unique and quintessential institution of imperial Japan's wartime regime. It stands as a powerful and tragic case study of how state power, when driven by militaristic and colonial ambitions, can mechanise and legitimise extreme human rights abuses. It demonstrates, unequivocally, how violence against women, specifically sexual violence, is not a peripheral byproduct of war but can be strategically centralised as a powerful tool of military logistics and psychological domination.

Ultimately, the story of the comfort women is a dual tragedy: first, of the unimaginable suffering inflicted upon tens of thousands of women whose lives were irrevocably shattered by the system; and second, of the prolonged injustice they endured through decades of silence and denial. Their experience forces a necessary and uncomfortable confrontation with the complexities of history, memory, and the enduring responsibility of the state for its crimes.