Since the 1980s, Koreans have been accusing Japan of “abducting
and forcing hundreds of thousands of Korean women into prostitution during the
World War II”. However, this is falsification
of history, not backed up by historical evidence.
There are five main points about the issue of Korean “comfort
women”:
- There is no evidence that the Government of Japan and the Imperial Army of Japan forced women into prostitution. In all the official records and documents on the orders from the Government and the Army, no such evidence can be found.
- Recruitment of comfort women was done by private brokers. In the newspapers back then, there were many advertisements on comfort women, and there were many comfort women who earned huge amount of money. There were also many women who were sold by their parents out of poverty, and thus it was a sad period in the history; however, there is no evidence that Japanese government or army gave orders for or forcibly took the women.
- The army strictly regulated the private brokers. Army memorandum 2197, issued on March 4, 1938, explicitly prohibits recruiting methods that fraudulently employ the army’s name or that can be classified as abduction, warning that those employing such methods have been punished. Many of these brokers were Koreans (who had been Japanese at that time under the annexation policy).
- Japanese government dealt severely with those who violated the above-mentioned memorandum. The August 31, 1939, issue of Dong-A Ilbo, published in Korea, reports of unscrupulous brokers who abducted / forced women to become inanfu (comfort women) against their will being punished by the local police, which was under Japanese jurisdiction at the time. This offers proof that the Japanese government dealt severely with inhumane crimes against women.
- Lawful prostitutes existed at any wars at any time. The fact that many of the women who worked as the comfort women earned incomes more than what were paid to a senior military officer demonstrates that the decision of becoming a comfort woman or not was her own or parent’s (though there were some cases where women were taken by unscrupulous brokers or Koreans).
Most Koreans today do not know
that their own people cheated their women, even abducted them, into
prostitution. They have no intention of acknowledging it either. Without
looking at this fact, the “comfort women” are appealing that they were harmed
unilaterally by Japan.
More details on the issue with historical evidence:
What is the “Comfort Women Issue”?
Yes, we remember the facts
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