The women of comfort (in Japanese: 慰安婦 Ian-fu ) was women, in majority Asian, forced prostituer for the Armée imperial Japanese woman and the Japanese imperial Marine during the Second world war.

Motivations

Following the Massacre of Nankin in 1937 and international outcry which was followed from there, the imperial district-general undertook to implement a way of limiting the tensions caused by the rapes, extremely many, made by the soldiers Showa in the conquered territories.

The objective was also to maintain moral troops and to protect them from the venereal diseases (by imposing the use of the condom in the closed houses). To achieve this goal, it was thus necessary to permanently make sure of the availability of a sufficient number prostitutes.

Under the order of Hajime Sugiyama, Minister for the Army, and the prince Kotohito Kan' in, chief of staff and great-uncle of Hirohito, the Army proceeded to the establishment in occupied zone of centers of relaxation or houses of comfort (of the closed houses not to actually confuse with French BMC ( military brothel of countryside ) similar to those set up in 1932 at the time of the countryside of Shanghai by the general Yasuji Okamura. According to work of Known the Zhiliang historian, at least 149 houses were established in this city.

Organization and operation

They were directed either by the army or the navy, or by the local governments or by private individuals.

The leaders touched a share on the price of the master keys. Enough often the women did not receive anything, although a remuneration is envisaged by the payments of the Japanese army. These payments prohibited also the weapons and alcohol.

The Japanese leaders had fixed operating rules, like (of 9:00 at midnight, the every day of the week), the day opening hours of rest (2 days per month at the time of the Menstruation S), disinfection of the rooms, medical visit or treatment of the women reached of venereal diseases (treatment which in practice consisted in giving up them or to kill them).

Recruitment of the women of comfort

The women " recrutées" were generally young people and unmarried. Majority of them coming at the beginning from Korea, Taiwan and China. The Army was reticent to employ Japanese women because of role of " reproductrice" who was reserved for them by the imperial policy.

False recruitments of waitresses or workers were organized, in order to enlist new women. The fraud sufficient step, of removals was organized (see more low). Japanese women were also misled, via the creation of the Body of the voluntary women, officially intended to ensure the labor of the factories. The military police force ( Kempeitai ) ensured recruitment by generally forcing the chiefs of village of the occupied territories to gather all the young women and continued the voluntary designated young women who escaped.

Work of Yoshiaki Yoshimi, professor with the University Chûô, shows the strong implication of the Japanese administrations, not only those of the army and the Kôa-in, but also those of the ministries for the Interior, Work and Finances. They establish after analysis of the documents of the army Shōwa, that this one had constituted of 1938 to 1945 approximately 2000 houses of comfort, of which in particular a center of relaxation of 1.000 women for an army of 100.000 men, in April 1939, with Kwandong in China. Yoshimi inter alia found a directive of March 4th, 1938 transmitted by the adjudant of the chiefs of staff of the army of China of the north and the task force of China entitled " Concerning the recruitment of the women for the houses of comfort militaires" , informant that " the armies on the ground will control the recruitment of the women”.

According to Yoshimi, the women came from the whole of the territories conquered like the Filipino , the Indo-China, the Burma the the Indies Dutchwomen and Singapore but as a majority of the Korea and the China. Some of them were thus the captive ones of Australian origin or Dutchwoman.

For the historian Ikuhito Hastened, professor with the Université Nihon and one of the figureheads of the organization of censure Tsukurukai, the administration Korean collaborationnist was principal the person in charge of misleading recruitment young girls.

For the number of the women, several estimates were made:

  • Yoshiaki Yoshimi estimated their number at with the more 200  000 on the whole;
  • the Korean Central News Agency proposes the figure of 200  000 for the only Korean ones.
  • According to Ikuhiko Hastened, the full number of the women of comfort was 20  000 (40  % of Japanese women, 20  % of Korea, 10  % the Chinese ones, the remainder being composed of Taiwan eases, Indonesia, Vietnameses, and Filipino).

Living conditions

Concerning the living conditions, there are several different testimonys. According to some former women of comfort, although the Japanese leaders fixed rules, their priority was obviously not the health and the living conditions of the women, but those of the Japanese soldiers.

They thus describe living conditions comparable to the Esclavage: they belonged to their closed houses. They were to satisfy to 70 customers per day. They were often beaten, tortured or even mutilated by the soldiers. Some of them even were carried out purely and simply because the soldier was not satisfied. Some which tried to escape were beaten, sometimes with death. One can bring closer these treatments to those presented in the film the Road of the Paradise .

One of the victims of Korean origin entrusted to the international investigators to have many times fears for his life. “I was almost assassinated on several occasions during my stay like " woman of réconfort". There were soldiers who were drunk and who held up their sabers towards me while they made me their requests for sexual perversions… The threats which they made were explicit: they would kill me if I do not coopérais.”

According to the testimony of fifteen victims of a prostitution network established in 1942 with the Eastern Timor by the Japanese imperial Navy, the prostitutes, of which some were prépubères, were forced to work without wages, the clothing and food in front of very their being provided by their parents. These remarks are confirmed by various witnesses including one former chief of village being made order by soldiers to find young women for this type of network.

The removal of the women

The removal of the women by the imperial army is today one of the aspects most prone to debate in the history of the women of comfort. The first testimony was that of Yoshida Seiji (see the heading the recognition ).

Documents found in the files of the Court of Tokyo, made public at the time of the lawsuits and found in 2007 by Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi, show that members of the Tokeitai, the naval military police force, removed women in China, in Indo-China and in Indonesia to force them to pass an medical examination and then dispatched them in houses of comfort

The May 12th 2007, the journalist Taichiro Kaijimura announced the discovery, in the files of the government Dutch, of thirty official documents submitted to the Tribunal of Tokyo like proof of an incident of prostitution of mass to Magelang, Indonesia, in 1944. According to the journalist, these documents show in a clear way that the women were removed by the army shôwa and were forced with the prostitution in houses of comfort

At the time of a testimony on his experiment with the face, the veteran of the army shôwa Yasuji Kaneko, told that the women " cried but little imported us if they lived or died. We were the soldiers of the emperor. That it is with the military brothels or in the villages, we violate without any réticence."

In addition, the March 4th 1938, the staff of the task force of China diffused a directive, named Gun ian-OJ jungyô-fu tô boshû nor kansuru ken (the business concerning the recruitment of the women of comfort) . This document, discovered by Yoshimi in the library of the Agency of defense of Japan, required of the soldiers of the imperial army in China of north and central China to pay attention to the procurers who practiced removals and declared that “the armies on the ground would ensure the control of the recruitment of the women”.

Recognition

The first public testimony on the fate of the sexual slaves of the mode shôwa was published in 1971 by a Japanese woman writing under the pseudonym of Suzuko Shirota. Accommodated in the general indifference, this work told the experiment of this woman, orphan of mother at 14 years, and sold by his/her father at 18 years with a tenant of house of comfort making to business in Taiwan with the Armée imperial Japanese woman

In 1982, a Japanese Yoshida Seiji told in a conference its experiment of the removal of the women. The following year, it published its work Watashi No sensô hanzai (My war crime) . It is this work which popularized the problem of the women of comfort with the assistance of the newspaper Asahi Shimbun. However, in 1996, Yoshida acknowledged that told removal was a fiction, without disavowing its participation in the raids of Korean women.

It is in 1991 that the scandal burst truly, with the request for a legal procedure against the Japan by a former woman of comfort, Kim Hak Sun. Since many other women carried felt sorry for (like certain countries like the South Korea). However, as indicated in the heading the removal of the women , there are many contradictions in their testimonys.

The publication in 1992 of work of the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi bearing on documents seized by the allies in 1946 and stored with the library of the National Institute for Defense studies of Tokyo establishes finally a tangible bond between the army Shōwa and the houses of comfort .

The contents of this work were brought back by certain Japanese mediums the January 12th 1993. In reaction, the Japanese government recognized the very same day, via Kato Koichi, the implication of the army shōwa in the establishment of the houses of comfort. The 17, it was with the turn of the Prime Minister Ki' ichi Miyazawa to excuse itself at the time of a voyage in South Korea. The government carried out certain hearings then and emitted the August 4th 1993 a declaration by which he recognized inter alia the army shōwa was directly or indirectly implied in the establishment and the management of the houses of comfort and that the women were recruited in many cases against their liking .

The March 1st 2007, the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, coming to a conclusion about the draft Resolution of support to the victims presented to the American Congress, denied the implication of the army shôwa in the physical removal of the women by declaring “the fact is which there is not proof that there had been use of constraint”. The deputy Nariaki Nakayama has as for him makes the point that one can compare these brothels with cafeterias directed by private companies which recruit their own employees, offer food and fix their prices. But to affirm that the women were forced by the Japanese soldiers in service is beside the stage coach. This file must be reconsidered, for the good of the honor of Japan. .

The April 17th 2007, the historians Hirofumi Hayashi and Yoshiaki Yoshimi stated to have found in the files of the Tribunal of Tokyo seven document concerning with testimonys of members of the civil navy shōwa confessing to have stopped indonésiennes under false pretexts or referring to members of the Tokeitai having removed Dutch Chinese, indonésiennes and to make sexual slaves of them.

June 26th, 2007, the Committee of the Foreign affairs of the Room of the representatives of the United States adopted a resolution requesting inter alia from Japan " to recognize formally, to excuse and accept its historical responsibility in a clear and unambiguous way for the constraint employed by its soldiers in order to force women with sexual slavery during the guerre." This resolution was adopted by the Room of the Representatives on July 30th, 2007, to the great displeasure of Shinzo Abe, finding “regrettable” this decision.

Two reports/ratios

In 1996, a lawyer sri lankaise, Radhika Coomaraswamy, presented his report/ratio on military slavery during the war to the Commission of the human rights of the United Nations. Two years after, an American special protractor, Gay McDougal, presented his report/ratio in connection with the women of comfort (being the appendix and his principal report/ratio is on the rape in Yugoslavia) which recommends to Japan:
  • to fully recognize its responsibility in setting-up for the system for comfort and to recognize that this system violated the international law;
  • to present complete and honest excuses, by assuming its legal responsibility and by offering guarantees so that these crimes are never repeated;
  • To compensate, via the government, victims and the surviving ones and those which are entitled to a compensation in consequence of the violations declared to present, with sufficient amounts to repair the caused wrong and to prevent which it reproduces;
  • to install a mechanism of rigorous investigation on the system of sexual slavery military, to make this mechanism accessible to the population and to ensure the historical safeguarding of documentation;
  • to consider, in consultation with the surviving ones, the establishment of a Commission of the truth and reconciliation which will create a historical file of the crimes sexospecific committed during the war, the transitional period and the occupation;
  • to recognize the victims and the surviving ones and to pay to them homage by creation of memorials, a museum and a library devoted to their memory and by the promise that such crimes will never occur again ;
  • to create projects educational, as well formal as abstract, like the inclusion of this chapter of the history in handbooks in all the levels and the support with the academics and the writers to allow them to inform the population, in particular the young people and the future generations, on the made violations and the undergone sufferings;
  • to support initiatives of formation as regards relation between the military system of slavery and the inequality of the sexes, and the preconditions necessary to ensure the equality of the sexes and the respect of the equality for the people of the area;
  • to repatriate the surviving ones which wishes the being;
  • to make public all the documents and another material in its possession about the stations of comfort ;
  • to identify and judge the principal persons in charge of the establishment and the recruitment of the stations of comfort ;
  • to find and return to the families or to the close people who wish it the remainders of the women died for this period.

These two reports/ratios were not adopted by UNO.

The international court of the women for the repression of the war crimes

It is the International court of the women for the repression of the war crimes which truly advanced the things on the international plan.

This court was set up mainly by groups of Féministe S and ONG. It was held 8 with the December 12th 2000 with Tōkyō. The purpose of it was to treat condition of the women during the conflicts and to make recognize the rape like a Crime against humanity. On this occasion, many witnesses and victims could testify, and of the evidence were presented. The case of the women of comfort was an important part of the lawsuit. The conclusions of the Court recognize the emperor Shōwa ( Hirohito ) like one of the principal persons in charge of the establishment of these closed houses, and require of the Japan to publicly recognize and make excuses with the victims. However, in spite of its name, the Court does not have any validity.

The Court recommends moreover than the old allied nations:

  • makes immediately public all the military and governmental files on the establishment and the operation of the system of comfort as well as the reasons for which these crimes were not judged by the international military Tribunal for the Far East (TMIEO);
  • makes immediately public all the military and governmental files on the impunity of the Shōwa emperor in front of the TMIEO;
  • recognizes the fact that themselves undertook neither investigation, nor continuation against the crimes committed against old the women of comfort within the framework of the lawsuits brought after the war and since the 55 last years.

The Court recommends moreover that the United Nations and all the States which are members:

  • Takes all the necessary measures to make so that the government of Japan grants full and whole repair to the victims, surviving and that which are entitled to the compensation following the violations made against them.
  • requires the opinion of the International Court of Justice as for the illegality of old the stations of comfort and to the responsibility for the government of Japan in this file.

Though these conclusions are appreciated by the feminists and some media, the conservatives criticize them because of their injustice. The defendants neither present (all deaths), nor were defended there. The opponents with the Court could not attend an audience. Moreover, the evidence and the documents were not objectively checked. This is why, according to the opponents, that was only one meeting.

Reference

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