Korean Comfort Women

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Comfort women, or ianfu as they are called in Korean, are females who were forced sex slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army (Chunghee). Some of the women were dragged off with physical force as their families wept, while others were actually sold to the army by their destitute families (Watanabe). Still other were officially drafted by the Japanese Imperial Army and believed they would be factory workers or nurses (Hwang in Schellstede 4). Some Korean village leaders were ordered to send young women to participate in "important business for the Imperial Army" (Watanabe). Many Japanese soldiers referred to comfort women as teishintai, which means “volunteer corps,” so those women who thought they would be working in a factory would not understand what the army really intended to do with them (Kim in Schallstede 25). Jungshindae was the women’s labor corps in which the women would work at a military factory and receive wages. Many women believed this was what they would be doing when they were recruited by the army (anonymous in Schellstede 103). The horrific practice of using comfort women for the army carried over from World War II to the Korean War.

Many feel that the practice of comfort women lies in discrimination on the part of the Japanese in terms of gender, ethnicity, and race. “Created through legalized prostitution based on patriarchy, colonialism, and imperialism, the system of comfort women clearly demonstrates that capitalism, sexism, and racism are linked and perpetuated both in the colonial and postcolonial eras” (Watanabe). Estimates as to how many comfort women there were range anywhere from 80,000 to 200,000, and it is believed that approximately 80% of them were Korean. Others came from the Philippi...

... middle of paper ...

...on and a decent apology. As for whether they will receive what they seek, only time and the Japanese government will tell.

Works Cited

“Album: Comfort Women History.” 2003. Brown University Korean American Students Association. 1 Dec. 2002.

Horn, Dottie. “Comfort Women.” 1997. Endeavors. Jan. 1997.

Schellstede, Sangmie Choi, ed. Comfort Women Speak: Testimony of Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military. New York: Holmes & Meier, 2000.

Soh, Chunghee Sarah. “The Comfort Women Project.” 1997. San Francisco State University. 3 Mar. 2002.

Watanabe, Kazuko. "Militarism, Colonialism, and the Trafficking of Women: ‘Comfort Women’ Forced into Sexual Labor for Japanese Soldiers". 1994.

Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars. Oct. 1994.

Kim, Huun Jin. “Comfort Women.” 2003. Voices.

Hicks, George. The Comfort Women. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994

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