Throughout the Second World War, there were many crimes committed against civilian populations.
Millions of people were forced out of their homes and were deported to other lands, and
millions of people were killed as the war came to their doorsteps.
Civilian women suffered heavily during the conflict, for example during the Battle of
Berlin, the Red Army rampaged through the city and inflicted horror onto women who were
living in the city.
Years before the Wehrmacht had done the same inside of the Soviet Union, but in the Pacific
theatre of the conflict, the Japanese Army kidnapped a huge amount of women and then
stole them away from their lives and forced them to work in true hell on earth serving
the men of the Japanese Army.
It’s estimated that up to 200,000 women were forced to become comfort girls and women,
but what is their story?
Join us today as we look at the horrific torture of the comfort women of the Japanese army,
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The Japanese Army it’s believed set up comfort stations of brothels for men of the Japanese
Army to visit for a number of reasons.
Firstly it was believed that these stations would reduce the amount of assault in the
civilian populations in which the army occupied, and also it was believed that these stations
would try to reduce the amount of transmitted infections amongst the Japanese soldiers,
and then this would not need to be treated.
They also set these up to try and limit leaks coming from the military, but ultimately these
comfort stations failed.
For example in the city of Nanking, the Japanese Army rampaged throughout the city causing
complete chaos looking for women of any age, and they then conducted horrific executions
of the women following their terrifying ordeals.
Comfort Women iniside of these houses lived in terrible conditions, and they were subject
to horror on a daily basis, and the Japanese referred to these houses as public toilets.
The houses did have a problem with security, and some workers were disguised as spies,
but ultimately the comfort women were used to satisfy frustrated soldiers and to prevent
revolt.
The goal in reducing assault did the opposite, but a huge number of these houses were set
up.
As Japan continued to expand the military, the army found itself short of women who volunteered
to become workers inside of the brothels.
Because of this a huge number of women were abducted and tricked into becoming workers
inside the comfort stations.
A lot of women responded to become workers in what they believed was a factory, or answered
advertisements to fill in nurse jobs, but they then were forced into working in the
stations.
During the earl parts of the Second World War, the Japanese recruited prostitutes through
normal means, but there was a huge amount of kidnapping.
Women and girls were stolen from their families, and they were told that they could relieve
their family’s debt by serving in this manner.
Many Korean girls enlisted in the jobs, and Korean women were being purchased for between
300 and 1000 yen based on their physical appearance, and then these women became property of men
in the military, and were not allowed freedom.
Many Chinese women also found themselves in this situation, and whatever country the Japanese
invaded, they took women to become comfort women.
As the war continued for the Japanese and more strain was placed on the military, they
struggled to resupply parts of the army, however the units then made up the difference by looting
local supplies, and the army also demanded that local leaders should give up women to
be part of the brothels along the front lines.
Some locals were considered hostile to this idea in china and because of this they carried
out a three alls policy, meaning they killed everyone in the settlement, burned the whole
settlement and took all they could.
This included the large scale assault of women in the Chinese population, and also they kidnapped
many of the women for them to be sold in the sadistic slavery.
It is believed that during a seven year period from 1938 to 1945, comfort women in lands
occupied by the Japanese numbered up to 410,000.
The largest number of women came from China, with around 200,000 Chinese women having been
kidnapped.
Many of the documents relating to this war crime were destroyed, and some historians
do vary in their estimates.
There were around 2000 comfort women stations where Korean, Filipina, Indonesian, Burmese,
Dutch, Australian, Taiwanese and Japanese women worked.
Many of these were teenagers and young girls, and very few worked in the licensed part of
the houses, with most of the women being unlicensed and victims of kidnap.
Japan it’s believed had quotas of women who were forced to work as comfort women,
and in Korea the daughters of the gentry and the higher classes were spared unless their
families showed signs of being against the Japanese Army, and being more in favour of
a pro-independent land.
The Army and Navy also subcontracted women and the taking of them to contractors who
would source the women and organised crime groups would also take part in this.
During the invasion of the Dutch East Indies, many Indonesian and European women suffered
at the hands of the Japanese forces.
Some women were taken to try and control the assault problem, with local leaders forcing
some women to work as comfort women to save other women.
This included many European women and a few even were forced to live inside the homes
of Japanese officers to serve one man rather than serve many in a brothel.
Many women faced starvation and refugee camps where conditions were tough if they didn’t
work in the houses, and many agreed to the offer of work when the true nature of what
they would be doing wasn’t released to them.
Some women in the Dutch East Indies volunteered to save younger ones, and the women forced
into this work in the Dutch East Indies is believed to be more than its indicated.
Comfort Women were often forced to travel to the battlefields with the Japanese Imperial
Army, and because of this many women were killed by Allied forces as they attacked the
Japanese defensive areas and camps.
Also the Japanese military executed Korean comfort women when they fled from the battlefield,
and many had anger taken out of them.
During the final last stand of Japanese forces at the end of the conflict, many women were
killed or took their own lives.
At one naval base, 70 women were killed before the American assault, and a number of women
during the Battle of Saipan threw themselves off the cliffs to avoid capture of execution
at the hands of the Japanese.
In.
Burma a number of the prisoners took their own lives by swallowing cyanide pills or were
killed as Japanese soldiers threw hand grenades inside of their bunkers.
The Japanese told many women that the Americans were cannibals, so many women were terrified
of falling into the hands of the enemy, and some believed that the Japanese would save
them and protect them.
There were also cases of starving troops turning to cannibalism when they were cut off especially
on remote pacific islands, and it was reported that some comfort women were killed there
and were then eaten for food by the Japanese Army.
One account from a former comfort women told of her horror during the Second World War.
Korean Kim Hal-Sun stated, ‘When I was 17 years old, The Japanese soldiers came along
in a truck, beat us and then dragged us into the back.
I was told if I was drafted, I could earn lots of money in a textile factory.
The first day I was assaulted, and it never stopped.
I was born a woman, but never lived as a woman.
I feel sick when I come close to a man, not just Japanese men, but all men even my own
husband who saved me from the brothel.
I shiver whenever I see a Japanese flag.
Why should I feel ashamed?
I don’t have to feel ashamed.’
This one woman claimed she was assaulted up to 40 times a day, and this happened every
day of every year that she was a comfort woman.
She felt dehumanised, and it greatly affected her for the rest of her lives.
Women were seen as spoils of war by the Japanese Army, and some were even used to donate flood
to treat wounded soldiers.
European women went to the officers and higher ranking soldiers but Korean women mostly were
assigned to the lower ranks.
Another former comfort woman stated, ‘Being used as a public dumping ground by those men
left me with a deep shame I still feel in the pit of my stomach.
It’s like a hard, heavy, sick feeling that never entirely goes away.
They reduced me to something low and disgusting that suffered miserably in front of them.’
The story of the comfort women of the second world war is an incredibly tragic and horrific
war crime, that saw hundreds of thousands of women stolen from their homes and towns,
and forced to conduct horrific work against their will.
Women from all over Japanese occupied lands were forced into this, and they experiences
of the women were truly harrowing.
Many of them were just girls when groups stole them for the Japanese Army, or they were led
away in trucks.
Many were tricked into volunteering believing they were going to work in restaurants, hospitals
and factories, however what they were actually forced to do was harrowing.
Many of these comfort women never lived out the war and were killed and executed during
the fighting, and today many of their stories remain untold.
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