Comfort Women

Individual and Society in Asia and the Pacific B (ASIA 1030)Tutorial group 6, group 3U4694042 Min Oh JungU4862102 Dao ThichU4994719 Jing Zhang

Content 1. What this photo tells us?

2. Why Comfort Women is the controversial issue?

- Massive and wide number of victims - The Japanese government involvement

- Comfort Women were prostitutes or sexual slaves?

3. Gender Issue

- The historical Japanese gender conception and the military comfort system - The Korean gender conception and the Korean victims of the Japanese

military comfort system - Females were victims of wartime rape

4. Inhumanity of the Japanese military comfort system

- Behaviours against to humanity - All comfort women was victims of the Japanese military’s inhumanity

behaviours?

5. What lessons can be learnt from this tragic incident?

What this photo tells us?

(Source: SC-230417, U.S. National Archives)Photo released for publication by Bureau of Public Relations, U.S. War Department; photodated September 3, 1944.

What this photo tells us?

• A pregnant woman

• A bruised head

• Military uniform and a gun

• Women without shoes

• Contradiction between a solider with smile and straight face women

Why Comfort Women is the controversial issue?

Massive and wide number of victims

The exact number is unknown because key documents burned. (Soh, 2000:63)

80,000 to 200,000 from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines and Dutch women in Indonesia. But the majority of the young women from Korea. (Korean Research Institute for Jungshndae, 2000: 31-32)

Why Comfort Women is the controversial issue?

(Source: Comfort Woman Picture Gallery, Photo Gallery, The Seoul Times)

(Source: Comfort Woman Picture Gallery, Photo Gallery, The Seoul Times)

Why Comfort Women is the controversial issue?

The Japanese government involvement

“Comfort Houses” to prevent soldiers from raping the local women. (Kim-Gibson, 1999:39-50)

: In 1937, the Rape of Nanking, which included the rapes and murders of an estimated 20,000 to 80,000 Chinese women, including young girls, pregnant mothers and elderly women. The Japanese government’s solution was the comfort women system. (Ishikane, 2006:126)

Recruitment methods varied

: Deception, threatening and kidnapping. The military frequently used the women’s poverty to persuade them with promises of high paying jobs as factory workers, nurse assistants, and cleaners. (Ishikane, 2006:127)

Why Comfort Women is the controversial issue?

Comfort Women were prostitutes or sexual slaves?

Japanese comfort women were mainly prostitutes and usually served officers.

(Pyong, 2003:944)

Most Korean comfort women were unmarried virgins in their teens and early

20s, and served a large number of enlisted soldiers. (Pyong, 2003:944)

Some comfort houses were virtual prisons, women were not allowed to leave.

(Kim-Gibson, 1999:39-50)

Why Comfort Women is the controversial issue?

(Source: George Hicks, 1995, The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, p. 98

Why Comfort Women is the controversial issue?

(Source: George Hicks, 1995, The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, USA, p. 101

Gender issue

The historical Japanese gender conception and the military comfort system

The “ie” system, established during the early Edo period (1603-1867)

: Based on Confucian principles, gave the patriarchal head of the family an unquestioned authority over his wife. (Pyong, 2003:947)

The Civil Code, established in 1898 by Meiji government, : Formally restricted women’s rights in marriage, property inheritance,

divorce, child custody, and voting. (Kumagai, 1996:94)

Gender issue

The historical Japanese gender conception and the military comfort system

The Gender hierarchy and patriarchal customs intersected with the imperial

war in the establishment of the military comfort system.

: In Meiji imperial Japan, women could be used in any way to serve the purpose of the Japanese state and the emperor. (Pyong, 2003:947-948)

Gender issue

The Korean gender conception and the Korean victims of the Japanese military comfort system

The patriarchal ideology played a key role in the suffering of Korean comfort women after their return. (Pyong, 2003:948-951)

Korean patriarchal customs still force them to hide their identity to their children, spouse, and their neighbours. (Pyong, 2003:948-951)

Gender issue

The Korean gender conception and the Korean victims of the Japanese military comfort system

“At that time, a woman’s chastity was considered more important than her life. How could I tell people I was daily raped by many soldiers. It would have been a great humiliation to my parents. Many times I regretted I came back home alive. It would have been better for me to die there. Yet, looking back I am angry at the fact that because of traditional Korean customs I had to hide my past without myself doing anything wrong.” (Pyong, 2003:950)

Gender issue

Females were victims of wartime rape

Wartime rape is not only the result of male sexual desire, but also the result

of social and cultural influences particular to given types of societies. (Gottschall, 2004:129)

According to the feminist theory, wartime rape is identified as a crime motivated by the desire of a man to exert dominance over a women. (Gottschall, 2004:130-131)

Inhumanity of the Japanese military comfort system

Behaviours against to humanity

Women were beaten and raped by 20 or 30 soldiers a day and for periods ranging from 3 weeks to 8 years. (Schellstede, 2000:108)

Regularly subjected to torture, burning, and sometimes stabbing. (Pyong, 2000:941)

Some women died of venereal disease, while others committed suicide. (Pyong, 2000:941)

Inhumanity of the Japanese military comfort system

Behaviours against to humanity

At the end of the war, comfort women were either abandoned or in some extreme cases, killed by the retreating Japanese army. In those cases, Japanese soldiers drove comfort women into caves and bombed, burned,

or shot the women, creating mass graves on the spot. (Soh, 2000:66)

Inhumanity of the Japanese military comfort system

Were all comfort women victims of the Japanese military’s inhumanity behaviours?

Comfort women in Burma

: They were able to buy cloth, shoes, cigarettes, and cosmetics and amused

themselves by participating in sports events with both officers and men, and

by attending picnics, entertainments, and social dinners. (Soh, 2008:34)

Inhumanity of the Japanese military comfort system

(Source: SC-262580, U.S. National Archives)Three Korean comfort girls were captured in Burma; photo dated August 14, 1944.

What lessons can be learnt from this tragic incident?

• A balanced view on issues is needed to see what really happened

• Attention to historical issues leads to prevention of

similar incidents occurring in the future

Thanks

Reference • Comfort Woman Picture Gallery, Photo Gallery, The Seoul Times

http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/photo_gallery/photo_gallery.php?name=Comfort_Woman_Picture_Gallery Viewed on 26th October 2011

• George Hicks, 1995, The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced

Prostitution in the Second World War, Norton & Company, pp. 998-101

• Gottschall, Jonathan, 2004, Explaining Wartime Rape, The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 129-136

• Ishikane, Kristl K, 2006, Korean Sex Slaves' Unfinished Journey for Justice: Reparations from the Japanese Government for the Institutionalized

Enslavement and Mass Military Rapes of Korean Women during World War II, University of

Hawai'i Law Review, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 123-162

• Kim-Gibson, Dai Sil, 1999, Silence Broken Korean Comfort Women, Mid-Prairie Books, pp. 39-50

• Korean Research Institute for Jungshndae, 2000, Grandmother, what is military “comfort women”?, Hankyeore Shinmunsa, pp. 31-32

• Kumagai, Fumie [Keyser, Donna J.], 1996, Unmasking Japan today: The impact of traditional values on modern Japanese society, Praeger Publishers, p. 94

Reference

• Pyong, Gap Min, 2003, Korean "Comfort Women": The Intersection of Colonial Power, Gender, and Class, Gender and Society, Vol. 17, No. 6, pp.938-957

• SC-230417, U.S. National Archives

• SC-262580, U.S. National Archives

• Schellstede, Sangmie Choi, 2000, Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military, Holmes & Meier, pp. 108-109

• Soh, Chung hee Sarah, 2000, From imperial gifts to sex slaves: theorizing symbolic

representations of the 'comfort women’, Social Science Japan Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 59-76

• Soh, Chung hee Sarah, 2008, The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan, University of Chicago Press, USA, pp. 34-35