Prostitution prior to the Asia-Pacific War

It is difficult to definitively determine when exactly the modern practice of prostitution, i.e., the acquisition of sex by means of payment (Barry Reference Barry1995: 26, 36), began in the Philippines. However, historian William Henry Scott (Reference Scott1994), in his research on 16th-century Philippine society, noted that in the Visayan region there were women “who gave favors freely to many men,” referred to as “kiral, lewd or prostitutes…” In comparison, no specific term was found to describe virginity in Luzon and the Visayas (140). In fact, virginity was generally not a norm for the timawas (commoners) of the 16th century, with the exception of the chieftain’s daughter, the binukot (Abrera Reference Abrera2009).

Writing on the customs of the Visayans in the 16th century, Spanish “conquistador” Miguel de Loarca recorded that a woman’s virginity was not of concern before marriage. He thus vilified this Visayan outlook by describing how their women “are beautiful but unchaste. They do not hesitate to commit adultery, but they receive no punishment for it. … and they even encourage their own daughters to a life of unchastity” (Loarca Reference Loarca, Blair and Robertson1583: 117–9). Concordantly, Friar Gaspar de San Agustin O.S.A., described the Visayan women as “very ready to consent to any temptation,” which he contrasted with women in other regions who by 1720 (253–4) seemed to have already adopted the Christian norm of chastity, i.e., the Tagalogs and Pampangos who “scarcely … put her person to trade.” From these excerpts, we can see how the introduction of Western Christian sensibilities led to the juxtaposition of virginity as a virtuous character vis-à-vis promiscuity as a detestable vice in the Philippines.

Following this new Western norm, “society’s worst opprobrium” would therefore be directed toward these women who, in violation of chastity, would “put their person to trade,” i.e., the puta or prostitute (Dery Reference Dery1991: 477). By the 19th century, Spanish authorities grew concerned not only because of the puta’s violation of public morals but also because they were seen as the cause of the spread of venereal diseases in the archipelago. As such, the colonial regimes of Spain and, subsequently, the United States attempted to regulate this trade despite concerns over public morals (Camagay Reference Camagay1988; Kramer Reference Kramer2011).

This debate regarding prostitution would continue until just before the Asia-Pacific War, with the discourse vacillating between its prohibition due to it being a “social evil/vice” (The Tribune 1940a; The Tribune 1940b) vis-à-vis its regulation as a means to prevent the spread of venereal diseases or as a means to address (thereby acknowledging) prostitution itself (The Tribune 1933a; The Tribune 1933b; The Tribune 1933c; The Tribune 1938).

The nature and conduct of the “comfort station” system and the war crimes trials

The Asia-Pacific War introduced another element in this debate regarding prostitution—rape. Although rape and prostitution are not mutually exclusive (San Agustin Reference San Agustin1720: 248), the prevention of rape had almost never been used to justify the regulation of prostitution (Camagay Reference Camagay1988; Dery Reference Dery1991; Bonnet Reference Bonnet2017), whereas during the Asia-Pacific War its purported prevention was used not only to justify the regularization of prostitution via the Comfort Station (Yoshimi Reference Yoshimi2000; Tanaka Reference Tanaka and Henson2017) but also to justify its proliferation on a large scale (WAM 2009).¹

According to the Japanese historian Hayashi Hirofumi, two patterns can be observed in the implementation of the system. Type-1, he notes, refers to the systematic establishment of comfort stations by the quartermaster corps. This pattern is commonly found in urban areas where Japanese rule has been relatively established. China, he suggests, is one example where women from Korea, Taiwan, and even Japan were brought to serve as comfort women. As for areas where anti-Japanese resistance was strong, typically in rural areas, the Japanese troops would forcibly abduct women, confine them, and repeatedly rape them. The experience of Shanxi province under the Japanese army, Hayashi notes, is representative of this Type-2 pattern (Hayashi Reference Hayashi2007: 2–5).

Regardless of the pattern, Hayashi opined that the implementation of the system was often a mix of both, with the soldiers of the Imperial Army making use of comfort stations in relatively stable urban areas while committing massacre and/or rape when sent out on punitive operations to areas with strong resistance to Japanese rule (Hayashi Reference Hayashi2007: 4).

The same mixed implementation of the CSS can be found in the Philippines. For instance, the Japanese Army was reported to have “employed” Japanese and Korean “prostitutes” in its comfort stations in San Fernando, which was typical of the Type-1 pattern described by Hayashi (United States Army 1945). In addition, sources such as the Amenities in the Japanese Armed Forces, compiled by the ATIS section (1943), state that these “hostesses (geisha, waitresses, maids)” who worked in brothels for the exclusive use of “soldiers or army civilian employees” were “hired” on a contract basis and may even be “re-hired” upon “expiration of their term of contract,” except for “persons who have not been overseas at least a year.” This suggests, at least on paper, the existence of a regulated and systematized CSS comparable to those found in “pacified” areas.

Yet, even the expansion of the Type-1 CSS during the early occupation years (“Item Regarding the Forwarding of Regulations on Comfort Stations (Asia Hall, Comfort Station No. 1)” 1942, in Yoshimi Reference Yoshimi1992: 324–7) did not guarantee the prevention of acts of sexual violence by the Imperial Forces. Just a month after the invasion of the Philippines, it was “repeatedly observed” that the frequency of rape committed by the Japanese Army increased during “foraging” activities (GHQ/SCAP 1945d) leading to the native female population fearing any encounter with the Imperial Japanese Army (Luga Reference Luga and Lars2015, Reference Luga2016). Seeing that these acts cast a “serious slur” upon the “noble idea of establishing the Greater East Asia-Co Prosperity Sphere,” rape was made punishable under the Japanese Military Penal Code, followed by the establishment of the CSS in the archipelago around May 1942. However, even after the establishment of numerous CSS together with the supposed penalization of rape, acts of sexual violence still continued for the duration of the War (Document 1: “The following were landed ashore: 24 persons for the comfort station” 1942; ATIS 1943, 1–9, in GHQ/SCAP 1945d; Association for the Investigation of Wartime Sexual Violence 2008: 18). Take, for instance, Central Luzon. Despite the implementation of the CSS in the area via San Fernando in 1942 (Document 12: “The comfort women, fearing rumors, returned to Manila” 1942, in United States Army, 1945; Association for the Investigation of Wartime Sexual Violence 2008: 30–1), nearby areas such as Angeles, Mabalacat, and Magalang, as seen in Figure 1, still had reports of Filipina women (e.g., Maria Rosa Henson, and Sabina Villegas) being forcefully taken into Japanese “garrisons” to serve the soldiers’ sexual and other domestic needs (Association for the Investigation of Wartime Sexual Violence 2008: 16–7; WAM 2009; Henson Reference Henson2017).

Figure 1:

Despite the establishment of a Type-1 comfort station in San Fernando, various reports of forcible abduction, confinement, and rape—typical of Type-2 comfort stations—took place in specific areas surrounding San Fernando.

What this almost-simultaneous establishment of the different types of comfort stations in Central Luzon reveals is that Type-1 comfort stations did not successfully prevent sexual violence against the native population (i.e., rape), nor did they prevent the establishment of nearby Type-2 comfort stations. This helps explain the continued expansion of the CSS throughout the archipelago during the Asia-Pacific War, and the blurring of supposed “boundaries” the system tried to create—between victims of rape and (prostitution). Consequently, this context also influenced how cases related to sexual violence were investigated following the end of the war.

The end of the war led to the immediate investigations and trials of individuals suspected of having committed “Illegal Acts” against the Allied nations and their civilian populations. In the Philippines, these War Crimes Trials were started by the United States, given that Philippine independence was only granted a year after. Most of these investigations and trials focused on class B crimes: violations of the laws to either “the laws or customs of war, with respect to treatment of prisoners of war or internees” and class C crimes: “inhuman acts committed against any civilian population before or during the war” (Nagai Reference Nagai2018: 121–22; Chamberlain Reference Chamberlain2019: 42), with rape being investigated as a class C crime.

According to a “Roster of Cases by Report Number,” at least 14 cases of rape were investigated by the War Crimes Investigation Detachment of Manila (GHQ/SCAP 1945d). In comparison, no case about “prostitution” was ever investigated, and if any, only two instances of “forced prostitution” were reported to have been investigated—Case K-80: 5 Girls Forced into Prostitution, Agusan, Mindanao (GHQ/SCAP 1945c) and Case J-93: Mass Prostitution at Talisayan, Oriental Misamis, Mindanao (GHQ/SCAP 1945b). This is peculiar since in other case reports, the expected characteristics of “forced prostitution”—women forced into captivity in enemy stations with experience of repeated sexual abuse—appear to be applicable and yet were not labeled as such.

Manila Report 212: Baguio Kempei, for instance, includes a testimony describing how Teodora Caoili’s daughter and niece were arrested by the Kempei on January 11, 1945, on accusations of being spies. Caoili noted how both were brought to the Mary Knoll Convent, “in separate rooms.” Caoili continues:

Considering that Caoili’s daughter died during her Kempei detention, one can only imagine the extent of “maltreatment and abuse” that she suffered.

On the other hand, a more explicit example appears in Closed Case File D-86, which concerns a rumored Mrs. Smith who was said to have been a victim of “Forced Labor, Rape, and Murder.” According to the report, three Japanese officers took this white woman “as a house keeper … forced to remain naked at all times… (to be) frequently assaulted and raped by the Japs” (GHQ/SCAP 1945a). Despite these experiences, the cases of Caoili’s daughter and Mrs. Smith were never labeled as “forced prostitution,” regardless of the existence of the term in cases K-80 and J-93.

How did the War Crimes Investigation, therefore, delineate which cases constituted rape vis-à-vis “forced prostitution,” if the manner and circumstance of one’s captivity did not seem to matter in such a determination? For the War Crimes Investigation Detachment, the answer was determined more by the woman’s supposed “character” than by the circumstance that had led her to such a situation. In Case K-80, “5 Girls Forced into Prostitution,” the report noted that the women who supposedly escaped had “carried out their trade during the Japanese occupation and later when the Americans liberated the area.” This remark influenced the investigators to stop proceedings despite witness testimony stating that the women escaped Japanese custody due to “sexual abuse” (Form Reference Form and von Lingen2016: 156).

As for J-93, the case was reported to have happened also near Agusan (Talisayan, Mindanao), with the testimony coming from the same witness as in Case K-80, Lt. Col. Ernest Edward McClish. In his testimony, McClish mentioned that 50 Filipino girls were abducted by the Japanese and were then brought to their garrison to be “used as prostitutes by the Japanese soldiers.” Yet, the case was closed based on an interview with a Jesuit priest residing in the area, Father Reich, who claimed that there were no such operations there. What was peculiar about this case was that the investigators did not attempt to exhaust all credible leads provided by Lt. Col. McClish in an effort to reconcile the two conflicting reports. This stands in stark contrast to the meticulous investigation undertaken regarding the “forced labor, rape and murder of Mrs. Smith” (Closed Case File D-86), going so far as to track down the origin of the hearsay.

I surmise that given the proximity of Case J-93 to Case K-80, investigators concluded that the 50 Filipino girls were also probably “prostitutes” before the war, hence dropping the case despite McClish’s testimony. When juxtaposed with Manila Report 212 and Closed Case File D-86, prejudice against “forced prostitutes” becomes clear: despite the similarity in experience among all four—there was captivity, absence of consent, and repeated sexual abuse—only the victims of Report 212 and Case D-86 received proper attention. The difference in treatment of such cases, I argue, arises because, unlike Report 212 and Case D-86, the “Filipino girls” of Cases J-93 and K-80 were considered prostitutes first and victims second, silencing the complexity of their experience of sexual violence in the process of the investigation.

Ironically, the American War Crimes Trials therefore furthered the blurring process started by the Japanese CSS—all “prostitutes,” regardless of “circumstance,” were deemed incapable of being raped whereas despite the similarity in circumstance, those who were held in captivity (e.g., Mrs. Smith) while being “sexually violated” were not labeled as “prostitutes” as long as they were “not promiscuous” prior to the abuse. This simplistic segregation of a “worthy victim”—between rape victims and “forced prostitutes”—ultimately framed the conduct of the War Crimes Trials, explaining both the existence of the idiosyncratic term “forced prostitute” and the lack of cases tried regarding “forced prostitution.” It was also this attitude regarding prostitution that silenced the memory of the comfort women—since these women “stayed” in comfort stations, they must have been “prostitutes,” and since they were immediately assumed to be “prostitutes,” their narratives were already judged to be “unworthy” of investigation. Thus, it is here, in the silencing of the “forced prostitute,” that we see the initial forgetting of the collective memory of the comfort women, an amnesia which continued during the postwar years.

From prostitution to collaboration

The implementation of the CSS along blurred lines was further obfuscated by the 1945–1947 War Crimes Trials through their refusal to recognize the complexity of the victims’ wartime experience. Instead, the state preferred to simplify the process of investigation using prewar norms of virginity vis-à-vis promiscuity. As a consequence, the collective memory of the comfort station victims was silenced, regardless of their experience. This neglect of the collective memory of the Filipina comfort women continued during the postwar witch-hunt for collaborators.

In 1944, issues regarding wartime collaboration by Filipinos with the Japanese military were already considered of grave importance. In a speech broadcast over the counter-propaganda radio station Voice of Freedom, President-in-exile Sergio Osmeña warned Filipino listeners that “Those charged with giving aid and comfort to the enemy, whether office holders or private citizens, with being traitors and disloyal to the governments of the Philippines and of the United States will be dealt with in accordance with law” (Osmeña Reference Osmeña1944: 36). This attitude toward collaborators was the general sentiment of both the Philippine state and society following Philippine independence. It was under this new parameter that the collective memory of the comfort women was scrutinized.

Pablo D. Castro’s letter to the Investigation Section of the War Crimes Trials was revealing of this homogenizing attitude toward the comfort women. In his report, he identified the existence of a “‘Cherry’ restaurant” at Manila, which was run by a Kempei interpreter named Tanaka. This interpreter was married to a Filipina named “Trining.” “Trining,” he argues, prevented him from “obtaining necessary information” about his Japanese torturers. He goes on to involve the women of the “‘Cherry’ restaurant,” criticizing these “hostesses or waitresses” for giving “comfort” to the enemy, branding them as “spies and informers” (Castro Reference Castro1944). We see here how collaboration was often determined by association. Since the “hostesses or waitresses” were working under Tanaka and Trining, they must also have been “traitors.” Thus, they all deserved to be punished for “collaboration,” disregarding any possible nuance and evidence on the matter, similar to how the American War Crimes Investigation neglected the comfort women’s experience through mere association with the comfort stations.

This sweeping generalization of the comfort women under the category of “collaborator” is seen in their inclusion at the People’s Court trials. Under President Osmeña, the People’s Court was organized to try crimes against national security perpetrated from December 8, 1941, to September 2, 1945 (Orillos Reference Orillos2005: 189). It was under this court that Filipino civilians who were believed to have committed treason by aiding the enemy were tried. One of the cases handled by this court was that of Emetria Mascarenas, an alleged “comfort girl.” Historian Maria Florina Orillos, who examined these cases of Filipina collaborators, opined that, though Mascarenas’ case was dismissed due to insufficiency of evidence, there was no certainty as to how the court and its litigators evaluated Mascarenas’ voluntary or forcible conscription into the comfort women system (Orillos Reference Orillos2005: 210). Thus, regardless of consent, the state had already labeled these women as wartime “collaborators.”

This transformation of the comfort women narrative from “forced prostitution” to “collaboration” was frozen in time with the United States’ decision to implement a “reverse course” policy toward Japan. The victory of the Communists in China forced the United States to recalibrate its position toward Japan, leading it to rethink its demilitarization and democratization plans in exchange for Japanese support. One consequence of this policy was the call to end the prosecution of war criminals (Cumings Reference Cumings and Gordon1993: 40).

The Philippines, in an attempt to balance its own interests regarding reparations for economic development, retribution for the war crimes committed against it, and alliance with the United States, compromised on its demands for retribution, leading to the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951 and its eventual ratification in the Philippines in 1953 (Ohno Reference Ohno1986; Cumings Reference Cumings and Gordon1993; Trefalt Reference Trefalt2011). This transformation of Philippine–Japan relations from enmity to amity had a profound impact on the Philippines’ reconfiguration of its collective memory of the Asia-Pacific War during the 1970s.

Of heroic virgins and women patriots

Although recollections of “war memories” were generally not restricted by the government before 1972 (Nakano Reference Nakano, Setsuho and Yu-Jose2003: 342), they would soon lose favor with the public. Instead, historical accounts that promoted amity with Japan began to prosper, especially under the Marcos Sr. regime. Works that positively portrayed Philippine–Japan relations, such as that of East Asian historian Josefa Saniel’s Japan and the Philippines, 1868–1898, which focused on the first 30 years of Philippine–Japan relations from 1868 to 1898 (Reference Saniel1963), saw multiple reprints in 1963, 1969, and 1973 (Nolasco and Pantano Reference Nolasco and Pantano2018: 5). In comparison, nationalist historian Teodoro Agoncillo’s two-volume work The Fateful Years, a publication which focused on the Philippine experience of the Japanese Occupation, was only printed once (in 1965) during the same period, only to be reprinted much later in 2001 and 2010. This attempt to downplay the traumatic memories of the Asia-Pacific War was also noted by literary scholar Resil Mojares’ general survey of wartime-related literature, citing that the 1970s literature on the war focused mostly on its heroic military aspect, leaving its civilian narratives inchoate (Mojares Reference Mojares and Ricardo2006: 356–7).

This reshaping of war memories toward a positive portrayal of Japan was also reflected in popular culture. Compared to the 1940s–1960s films that focused on the Filipino war trauma, 1970–1980s cinema called for its reevaluation. In both Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos [Three Years Without God] (Reference Aunor, De Leon, Roco and O’Hara1976) and Oro, Plata, Mata [Gold, Silver, Death] (Reference Reyes, Navarro, Santos Concio, Gallaga, Gil and Andolong1982), there was a marked absence of a strong Japanese antagonist, with Filipino guerrillas instead taking center-stage as the main villain in both films (Deocampo Reference Deocampo2016: 391–402, 407–10). On the other hand, the TV series Fort Santiago, whose themes centered around Filipino fortitude and courage in the face of Kempeitai violence, was pulled off the air (Jose Reference Jose2010: 129).

Finally, in perhaps the most emphatic display of reshaping official memory, the Marcos Sr. regime in 1974 held a televised ceremony to accept the surrender of Lt. Hiroo Onoda, who had held out for 30 years in the mountains of Lubang Island, Luzon. In the ceremony, Marcos gave the 52-year-old IJA officer a full presidential pardon “for any claims or responsibilities during the war,” even offering Onoda the possibility of staying in the country (Associated Press 1974: 6). No investigation or trial was conducted for any actions he may have committed during the war or while in hiding. At a time when the Philippine press had become one of the most controlled presses in Asia, joining the ranks of South Korea and Singapore (Lent Reference Lent1974), this public display of Onoda’s surrender and pardon can be described as a calculated strategy to emphasize the state’s attempt to reshape the collective memory of the war—from enmity to amity.

The state had a vested interest in silencing this violent collective memory of the war. In the 1970s, the Philippines saw tourism as an avenue to shore up its economy. The state went about this through capitalizing on the “heroism” of the war dead via the wave of Japanese “pilgrimage tours” that visited the country in the 1970s (Nakano Reference Nakano, Setsuho and Yu-Jose2003; Jose Reference Jose2010). Politically, the Marcos administration also had a personal interest in glorifying the war dead over wartime atrocities. By emphasizing his myth of wartime heroism, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was able to capitalize on his carefully crafted personality cult, while downplaying his family’s history of wartime collaboration (Horikoshi Reference Horikoshi1944). It was therefore in the interest of this administration to valorize the history of the veterans at the expense of forgetting civilians’ experiences of wartime atrocities, including those of the comfort women. If they should ever be remembered, it would have to be on the state’s terms of heroism and patriotism.

The book Heroic Virgins and Women Patriots: Female Patriotism during the Japanese Occupation by World War II veteran and University of the Philippines (UP) Professor Alfonso P. Santos (Reference Santos1977) exemplified this state reframing. A collection of 58 supposedly true stories submitted by his former UP students, Santos edited, translated, and compiled these accounts, then categorized them into 44 Heroic Virgins and 14 Women Patriots. Reading through the accounts, what stands out is the basis for the selection of Heroic Virgins—they are heroic because they either resisted rape, avenged their rape, or entered prostitution to aid the resistance movement. Two accounts of “prostitutes” were included here—those of Maria and Pacita (Santos Reference Santos1977: 5–8, 89–90).

The narration of both accounts follows a similar pattern: Maria and Pacita were shunned by their locality because they were publicly recognized as “prostitutes” of the Japanese, only for their honor to be “redeemed” at the end of the war with the revelation of their espionage activities for the Filipino guerrillas. Again, the burden of being saved from the comfort station system was placed not upon external agents but on the very victims themselves. To be saved from neglect, the collective memory of the comfort women had to conform to the homogenized narrative of “heroism.” Through this homogenizing state filter, complicated narratives about their sexual enslavement under the Imperial Japanese Army remained silenced.

Carriers of the comfort women memory

Immediately following the end of the Asia-Pacific War, state and society attempted to silence the memory of the comfort women. Thus, the means of saving their memory rested upon their own efforts to sustain it and on the “memory activists”—the lawyers, writers, and historians—who together mobilized the comfort women memory (McGregor Reference McGregor2023: 10). The product of these early engagements is the historical and autobiographical works on the comfort women that survived the Cold War.

Perhaps the earliest work that recorded the memory of the comfort women in history was Ienaga Saburō’s The Pacific War, 1931–1945. Originally published in 1968, Ienaga’s work is insightful not only in recognizing prostitution as a “violation of women’s rights to a decent occupation and livelihood,” but also in acknowledging the “double jeopardy” the “comfort girls” were subjected to under the Japanese military (Ienaga Reference Ienaga1978: 184). A year after the publication of Ienaga’s work, Senda Kakō’s Jūgun Ianfu transformed the comfort women from a “horror of war” into the main subject of inquiry (Kimura Reference Kimura2018: 35). Senda’s work on the comfort women, which was based on his interviews with different IJA ex-servicemen and civilian operators involved in the system (Hicks Reference Hicks, Duus, Myers and Peattie1996: 306), was important for casting a sympathetic eye on the plight of the comfort women (McGregor Reference McGregor2023: 109).

Outside Japan, Korea also began to engage with its own collective memory of the comfort women system. In a 1972 Chosen Soren (General Association of Korean Residents in Japan) Report on Forced Mobilization of Koreans, the existence of a group of 慰問隊員 [comfort members] was mentioned (Suh Reference Suh2024), while Kim Il-Myon, a Korean writer and a permanent resident of Japan, had already described the Korean comfort women as セックスの奴隷 [sex slaves] in 1976, even analyzing the relationship between the comfort stations in Shanghai and Korea in 天皇の軍隊と朝鮮人慰安婦 [The Emperor’s Army and Korean Comfort Women] (Soh Reference Soh2000: 72; Su et al. Reference Su, Chen, Yao and Huang2024: xiii).

Comparatively, postwar publications in the Philippines acknowledged the rampant (prostitution) during the Asia-Pacific War. Manuel Buenafe’s Wartime Philippines (Reference Buenafe1950: 157) recalled how “in desperation” women entered prostitution in “roadhouses, cafes, bars, and nightspots mushroomed up everywhere,” and how “some entertainers were former college students and daughters of heretofore well-to-do families.” Similarly, Abraham Von Hartendorp’s The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines recognized the “many homeless young Filipino girls forced into the degrading trade” of prostitution (Reference Hartendorp1967: 1:445). In addition, Hartendorp also acknowledged the prevalence of prostitution, particularly in the Ermita district of Manila, which he compared to a “sprawling Yoshiwara,” while noting the existence of “Japanese women” prostitutes: “The Leonard Wood Hotel was a Japanese ‘house’, and passer-by in the afternoon could see Japanese women, naked to the waist, primping themselves for the night in the ground-floor rooms” (Hartendorp Reference Hartendorp1967: 1:445).

Hartendorp, who was in the Philippines during the war, showed a level of awareness about the existence of these “houses” and “clubs” during the postwar years—the euphemistic terms used for brothels in ATIS Report 120 (ATIS 1945). However, the connection between prostitution/rape and Imperial Japan as wartime state policy (Yoshimi Reference Yoshimi2000; Tanaka Reference Tanaka and Henson2017) had yet to be made by memory activists at that time, given the nation-state’s dual political-economic interest in silencing such memories, not to mention the freezing of war crimes discourse due to the exigencies of the Cold War. For these collective memories to be mobilized, it would require the help of other memory activists who could transcend domestic regimes. This development had its roots in the 1970s, with the global feminist response against sex tourism.

“Sex tourism,” sexual slavery, and women’s rights

Feminist scholar Vera Mackie (Reference Mackie, McCormack and Sugimoto1988: 218–32) noted that the “sex tourism” industry of the 1970s was a consequence of the economic restructuring that occurred in the region during this time. Japan, facing high labor costs domestically, offshored its manufacturing sector to the cheap-labor region of Southeast Asia. As for Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, its attempts to industrialize had left its rural agricultural society impoverished, forcing migration to the cities, including rural women. These restructurings led to the creation of both a supply and a demand—supply from Japan via foreign investment and demand in the Philippines for foreign exchange to fund industrialization. Tourism, bolstered by sex, entered this arrangement as the quickest means of acquiring foreign exchange.

The tourist industry has been identified as the Philippines’ third- to fifth-largest earner of foreign exchange (Neumann Reference Neumann, Daniel and Shalom1987: 183; Mackie Reference Mackie, McCormack and Sugimoto1988: 220–5) with a majority of the traffic that fueled this industry being male. In a 1981 report by the Philippine Ministry of Tourism, men accounted for 66% of all visitors to the Philippines, with 20% coming from Japan, and of the nearly 200,000 Japanese, 80% were male (Neumann Reference Neumann, Daniel and Shalom1987: 183). One reason for this huge influx of male tourists outside of business was pleasure. The Associated Press (AP) described these tourists as “Mostly middle-aged, they are on group sex tours, arranged by some of Japan’s largest companies for clients and senior employees” (Anderson (AP) Reference Anderson (AP)1979: 19B). Outside of company-sponsored travel, individuals can take “sex tours” by asking their travel agent in Japan to create a package that included the “night-life” of Manila (or Taipei, or Seoul, or Bangkok). The system was described by Neumann in 1984 (reprinted 1987: 183):

The cost of the prostitute might be $60, but the prostitute would only receive roughly $5, with the rest being subdivided among the club owner, tour guide, tour operator, the police in exchange for protection, and even to the hotel as a “joiner’s fee” (Neumann Reference Neumann, Daniel and Shalom1987: 183). The “sex-tour” industry, however, was not a Philippine monopoly since the same operation could be done entirely under Japanese hands—travel via Japan Airlines, tour arranged by J.T.B., and stay in a Japanese hotel (Mackie Reference Mackie, McCormack and Sugimoto1988: 223–4).

“Sex-tours” were denounced by women in Japan. Takahashi Kikue, an activist of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, criticized how “sex tourism” drove “millions of men” out of Japan every year to their “former colonies or places we took in war…” Labeling the practice as “Sex imperialism,” Takahashi criticized the role that the heads of state of Asia played in it:

The “sex imperialism” of the 1970s–1980s served as a critical turning point for the discussion of the Asian comfort women. It served as a mnemonic device for the remembering of Japan’s colonial legacy in the region. Journalist Matsui Yayori’s statement regarding the issue reflects this remembering: “previously Japan colonized and pillaged Korea, raping many of her daughters as army prostitutes. Now they go back to the same land and disgrace her women again, this time with money” (McGregor Reference McGregor2023: 112). This “continued” sexual exploitation of women by Japan, together with its economic aggression and indirect support of Asia’s dictatorial regimes, led Matsui, together with six other women, to establish アジアの女たちの会 [Asian Women’s Association (AWA)] (“Who Are We?” 1977: 3–4; Mackie Reference Mackie2003: 112).

The transnational aim of AWA led to its different transnational activities. In South Korea, the AWA lobbied against the state’s indirect involvement in “sex tourism,” leading to its ban by President Park Chung Hee. In the Philippines, the AWA coordinated with the Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women (TW-MAE-W) in preparing for the latter’s protest movements during Japanese Prime Minister Suzuki Zenkō’s goodwill tour in the Philippines and Thailand in 1981 (Neumann Reference Neumann, Daniel and Shalom1987: 184). The TW-MAE-W, which was established by Sister Mary Soledad Peripiñan in 1980, was inspired by the Korean and Japanese protest movements against the Kisaeng sex tours. This led to similar protests against the “sex tours” in the Philippines (Perpiñan Reference Perpiñan1986).

The active protests of both AWA and TW-MAE-W against “sex tourism” and their role in promoting women’s rights in the region were recognized internationally and, by 1983, both organizations were invited by Kathleen Barry to participate in her International Feminist Network Against Female Sexual Slavery (INFAFSS). The 10-day workshop in Rotterdam was organized “to produce more knowledgeable action in the world” regarding the global plight of “female sexual slavery.” Through this workshop, the AWA, TW-MAE-W, and other Global South CSOs were able to introduce a different perspective into the emerging radical feminist movement of the 1980s—that sexual slavery is a product of political-economic factors and colonial legacies beyond the patriarchy (Campbell and Stevenson Reference Campbell and Stevenson2025: 12–14). It was this expanded idea of “female sexual slavery” and the emerging discourse of “violence against women” anchored upon human rights that served as the theoretical underpinning for feminist organizations in the 1990s to mobilize the previously neglected collective memory of the comfort women (Kang Reference Kang2020: 1–18).

Return of democratic spaces

While transnational feminist movements were gaining ground in redefining the theoretical underpinnings of prostitution towards sexual slavery, domestic organizations were hampered by their respective authoritarian regimes from harnessing this discourse. These regimes, like colonial regimes of old, monopolized the use of sex for their own needs—to torture and silence dissent. The South Korean government, where the 1990s Asian comfort women redress movement started, was frequently reported to have used techniques such as electric shock, near-drowning, burning, and rape and sexual torture against its political opponents (Christie and Roy Reference Christie and Roy2001: 249; Cumings Reference Cumings2005: 393–404).

In the Philippines, the Marcos dictatorship utilized similar torture methods against its critics (Human Rights Violations Victims’ Memorial Commission 2024: 27, 31). This had a direct impact on the organization of women’s movements in the Philippines seeing that the first women’s movement in the country, MAKIBAKA (Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan or Free Movement of New Women), was prematurely silenced with the killing of its founder, Lorena Barros, by the military following the declaration of Martial Law in 1972 (Roces Reference Roces, Roces and Edwards2010: 36).

In addition to the suppression of civil society, public discourse via the press was also monopolized by the state. South Korea strong-armed its media through the Korean Central Intelligence Agency and later via the Basic Press Act of 1980 (Yum and Salwen Reference Yum and Salwen1990: 314), whereas the Philippines did this through its Letter of Instruction (LOI) 1 in 1972 (Melencio Reference Melencio2023: 8). Thus, the collapse of these authoritarian regimes was critical for the advancement of human rights and women’s rights discourse in the region (Christie and Roy Reference Christie and Roy2001: 6).

This obstacle was overcome by both South Korea and the Philippines in 1987 and 1986 respectively, with President Roh Tae Woo’s democratic election (Cumings Reference Cumings2005: 427) and the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship. Under President Roh, controls on labor organizing were removed, and the Basic Press Act was repealed (Cumings Reference Cumings2005: 426; Yum and Salwen Reference Yum and Salwen1990: 314–6), whereas the Cory Aquino administration instituted a Provisional “Freedom” Constitution which returned citizens’ rights previously denied by the dictatorship.

The return of democratic spaces in both South Korea and the Philippines proved crucial for the comfort women redress movement in both countries, since it allowed CSOs, together with the press, to engage with such memories. In Korea, Professor Yun Chung-Ok of Ewha University presented her research on the Chongsindae (Comfort Women) at the 1988 International Conference on Women and Tourism, and her research, which connected the Chongsindae with the contemporary Kisaeng “sex tours,” served as the framework for the Chongdaehyop [Korean Council for Women Drafted for Sexual Slavery or KNCW], which Yun, together with Lee Hyo-chae, founded in 1990 (Soh Reference Soh1996: 1232–33). The KNCW would use mass media to search for Korea’s remaining comfort women leading to Kim Hak-Sun’s public testimony about the comfort stations on August 14, 1991 (Kang Reference Kang2020: 3).

The Philippines followed a similar pattern in its organization and search for its remaining comfort women. Starting as a coalition of different women’s organizations against the Marcos dictatorship in 1984, GABRIELA (General Assembly Binding Women for Reforms, Integrity, Equality, Leadership, and Action) eventually focused on women’s advocacy following the 1986 revolution (Roces Reference Roces, Roces and Edwards2010: 37). In a 1986 “Primer About Women and For Women,” the organization recognized prostitution as a form of discrimination against women caused by “The tourism industry, the presence of the US Bases, the well-supported Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, the Migrant Workers’ Program and the promotion of marriage through mail order…” (Women Studies Resource Center 1986: 44). It was this framework regarding prostitution which guided GABRIELA as it attended the first Regional Meeting and Conference on Traffic in Women in Seoul on December 9–17, 1991, where they first heard about the comfort women as a state-sanctioned institution by Imperial Japan (Union of International Associations, n.d; Kang Reference Kang2020: 11). Following this conference, GABRIELA, together with other women’s organization, created the Task Force on Filipino Comfort Women (TFFCW). Through the help of the media, Maria Rosa Henson was able to contact the TFFCW, enabling her to publicly testify about her wartime comfort station experience (Mendoza Reference Mendoza2003: 256–7; Borromeo Reference Borromeo2010).

This shared understanding of the comfort women system beyond “military prostitution” into that of “sexual slavery” under the context of the Global South (Soh Reference Soh1996: 1226) allowed the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand to organize the first Seoul Asian Conference for Solidarity for the Asian Women Drafted for Sexual Services by Japan. From this 1992 conference, CSOs of attending nations together made “The Joint Resolution of the First Asian Solidarity Conference on Military Sexual Slavery by Japan” where they all agreed to deal with the issue of “military sexual slavery” by (1) continuing research on Japan’s sexual slavery atrocity during World War II, (2) urging that postwar actions be taken to address the sexual slavery issue, (3) working with the UN’s human rights organizations and others, (4) encouraging other absent nations to join the coalition, and (5) doing their “best for world peace and women’s rights” (Asian Solidarity Conference 1992).

In summary, this section showed that the forgetting of the collective memory of the Filipina comfort women was not permanent. Although states have attempted to reshape the collective memory of the war for their own purposes, the “insurgent” memories (Berger Reference Berger2012: 3) of the comfort women that were neglected throughout the postwar years merely needed engagement and mobilization to be remembered. The rise of international awareness toward women’s rights at the end of the Cold War, together with the return of democratic spaces in key Asian countries, has provided these victims of sexual violence the effability (Gluck Reference Gluck, Jager and Mitter2007: 51) to speak. Discourse was now made available to them, within which they could reveal their experiences while preserving their dignity (Seifert Reference Seifert and Stiglmayer1994: 68).