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Addressing Japan's ‘Comfort Women’ Issue From an Academic Standpoint

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Tessa Morris-Suzuki
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On 4 August 1993, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Kōno Yōhei issued an official declaration on the issue of the so-called ‘comfort women’ - women recruited to work in a large network of brothels operated by the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific War, where many suffered terrible sexual and other physical and mental abuse, and many died. The declaration, based on a study conducted by the Japanese government, read in part as follows:

Comfort stations were operated in response to the request of the military authorities of the day… The Government study has revealed that in many cases [the comfort women] were recruited against their own will, through coaxing coercion, etc., and that, at times, administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitments. They lived in misery at comfort stations under a coercive atmosphere.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 9 , March 2014 , e1
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2014