- Women forced into sexual servitude during WWII by the Japenese army
- Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipino, Indonesian, and Dutch women, but 80% was Korean
- 200,000 girls and women ages 14 to 30 were forced into this servitude from all over Japanese controlled territories.
- Were first called the Voluntary Corps
- The women were put into brothels for military use.
- They were said to be kept to prevent soldiers from raping local women, which lessened local opposition- to protect the soldiers form disease, and to protect military secrets.
- At the beginning of the war, the Japanese brought Japanese prostitutes to the front lines for the soldiers
- However, many of these girls already had diseases and spread them to the soldiers, so then the soldiers could not fight.
- Japan then decided to pay poor Korean families for the use of their daughters
- by the end of the war, the Japanese were even kidnapping married women.
- 70,000-80,000 women were sent to work on the front lines in Asia
- The Japanese government has still not made an official apology, although many lawsuits have been filed.
- treated as slaves by the Japanese
- first units opened in Shanghai in 1932
- When Japan declared war in Southeast Asia, they set up more units through the territories
- Military leaders thought that the soldiers needed sex
- aviod bad publicty of Nanking
- some girls were literally dragged out of their homes into trucks
- others were tricked- a 13- year- old Korean girl was given a ride in an Army truck and was brought to a brothel
- Japanese saw Koreans as ideal canidates because they were 1/2 assimilated and an "inferior race to the Japanese.
- assumed unmarried Koreans would be free of disease because of Confucius teachings
- Knew how to speak Japanese
- The Koreans were Japanese citizens and were not under "enemy" under the Geneva conventions
- Comfort women served 30 to 70 men a day
- kicked and pummelled into submission
- sporattically paid if paid at all
- had to work even if ill or injured
Sorry its up late. I didn't get a chance to get too much information in class so I wanted to do a little more research at home. Thank you.
