The term “comfort women” for the Japanese Armed Forces refers to all women who, since Japan’s invasion to Manchuria in 1931, had been mobilized under the control, supervision and collaboration of the Japanese government and military, transported to and detained in “comfort stations” that were launched, run and controlled by the upper echelon of the Japanese military and forced to be sex slaves.

The Japanese military established these “comfort stations” across various countries and regions—China, Indonesia, Singapore and Papua New Guinea to name a few—and coerced women from its colonies and occupied territories (e.g. Korea, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, East Timor and the Philippines) as well as Dutch and Japanese women into “sexual labor” for Japanese soldiers.

The total number of women mobilized as comfort women is estimated to be around 50,000 on the most conservative basis; if those detained and raped for a short period of time are taken into account, the figure is presumed to be 80,000-200,000. In this regard, the issue of comfort women is not just one of the core agendas for historical rectification concerning Japan’s invasion to and colonial rule over Korea but also a universal issue that remains relevant to world history from the perspective of protection of women’s human rights and condemnation of wartime violence against women.

The issue of comfort women came into the limelight in May 1990 when South Korean feminist activist groups released a statement asking for the Japanese government’s investigation into the realities of comfort women and apology for them.

In August 1991, a South Korean woman named Kim Hak-soon broke her long silence and confessed she had been a comfort woman for the Japanese military, providing a major breakthrough in resolving the issue of comfort women. As victims spoke up to prove the very existence of comfort women and relevant data are unearthed, the Japanese government was pressured by mounting public criticism at home and abroad to investigate the truth about comfort women. In July 1992, they announced their first survey report acknowledging the government’s involvement in the issue but claiming there was no data demonstrating the coerciveness of mobilization.

The Japanese government went on to conduct surveys in South Korea and other regions outside Japan and listened to the testimonies of victims to release the second survey report in August 4, 1993. In this report, they admitted Japanese military and administrative personnel had been involved in the coerced mobilization and service and apologized for what they recognized had been a serious infringement on human rights (Kono Statement – See Reference 1). At the same time, however, they left room for understanding those who had mobilized comfort women and run comfort stations as civilian contractors.

Even after releasing such statements, the Japanese government consistently maintained that they had no legal responsibility for the issue of comfort women. To fulfill their moral responsibility from a humanitarian perspective, instead, the Asia Women’s Fund was launched by Japanese civilians in July 1995, under the sponsorship of the Japanese government, to provide material compensation and medical welfare services for those who had been forced to serve as comfort women. The Fund disbanded on March 31, 2007 after providing “atonement money” for around 280 ex-comfort women in South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, while most of the victims and civic groups such as the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (KCW) ask for the Japanese government’s official compensation instead of ex-gratia payments offered on a civilian level.

Since it was brought by KCW before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in 1992, the issue of comfort women has drawn international attention as a universal issue of infringement on the human rights of women. Thanks to the strenuous efforts of the South Korean government and civic groups working together with overseas feminist and human rights activist groups, the United Nations (UN), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and other international organizations have recommended and urged for resolution of the issue since the mid-1990s.

In 1995, the ILO Committee of Experts urged the Japanese government to compensate for comfort women for the Japanese military, for the first time as an international organization, viewing the system of comfort women as a violation of ILO Convention No. 29 (Forced Labor).

In 1996, UNCHR approved the report of Radhika Coomaraswamy—the special rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences—that includes a recommendation to the Japanese government on apology to and compensation for victims and five other agendas. In the following year, the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights adopted the report by Gay McDougall, the special rapporteur on systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict, that indicates the criminal responsibility (i.e. punishment) of individuals involved in the mobilization and operation of comfort women as well as the Japanese government’s responsibility for compensation.

The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, held in Tokyo, Japan from December 7, 2000 to December 12, 2000, was a civilian court organized by former comfort women, activists, researchers and jurists. The court was comprised of civil trial on the Japanese government’s responsibility for indemnification and criminal trial asking for punishment on responsible individuals. Japanese Emperor Hirohito and nine senior government officials and military commanders—including Class A war criminal Tojo Hideki—were found guilty, and the Japanese government was recommended to compensate for the victims.

The year 2007 marked the culmination of international efforts to call for resolution of the issue of comfort women. Mike Honda of the United States House of Representatives and his fellow congressmen proposed a house resolution on comfort women for the sixth time which, despite Japanese lobbying, unanimously passed the plenary session on July 30, 2007. The resolution asked the Japanese government to formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility for the fact that they had forced young women into sexual slavery from the 1930s through World War II (See Reference 2 for the full text of the U.S. Congress Resolution). The initial draft of the resolution submitted by Representative Honda, which “called for” an official apology of the Japanese prime minister in the form of public statement, was later revised to “recommend” such an apology, and a provision stressing the significance of U.S.-Japan alliance was added. The U.S. congressional resolution, however, did pave the way for the passing of relevant resolutions by houses of representatives in other countries.

In November 2007, the Dutch House of Representatives passed a resolution, for the first time as an European country, that urged the Japanese government to provide moral and financial compensation for the surviving comfort women and clearly state the truth of comfort women in school textbooks (See Reference 3 for the full text of the resolution by the Dutch House of Representatives), followed by the Canadian House of Commons and the European Parliament which adopted similar resolutions (See References 4 and 5 for the full text of the resolutions).

In 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a report that synthesizes the voices of France, the Netherlands, North and South Korea, China and the Philippines urging the Japanese government to address the issue of comfort women.

(1) Coercion and state responsibility

The biggest point of contention regarding the issue of comfort women for the Japanese Armed Forces is coercion and subsequent state responsibility. The Japanese government entirely denied its involvement at first, claiming that it was “civilian contractors who brought military comfort women with them to travel together with the armed forces.” As Kim Hak-soon made an opposite testimony and data supporting her argument were discovered, however, Japanese chief cabinet secretary Koichi Kato released a statement in January 1992 to admit the military’s involvement and offer an apology. Along with the second report by the Japanese government, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono issued a statement acknowledging the involvement of the Japanese military and government and the coercion in mobilization and employment of comfort women. The statement, however, claimed the comfort women had been mobilized primarily by civilian contractors and that “administrative/military personnel took part in the recruitment at times,” leaving the possibility that the Japanese government is understood as not taking the lead in the forced mobilization and exploitation of comfort women.

Since the release of the Kono Statement, the Japanese government has officially remained it adheres to the statement, but a series of prime ministers and government officials have made remarks denying the forced mobilization of and legal responsibility for comfort women: Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe commented, “There was coercion in a broad sense, but coercion in a narrow sense was nonexistent”; the Japanese Cabinet issued a decision on March 16, 2007 that officially denied forced mobilization of comfort women, arguing they had “failed to find any statement directly indicating forced mobilization.”

Forced coercion of comfort women by the Japanese military or administrative personnel (i.e. so-called “coercion in a broad sense”) is clearly evidenced by the Report of a Study of Dutch Government Documents on the Forced Prostitution of Dutch Women in the Dutch East Indies During the Japanese Occupation (1994), the Japanese court’s ruling over a compensation lawsuit filed by ex-comfort women from Yu County, Shanxi Province, China (2002-2007), and documentary evidence on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East held immediately after World War II. What is more important than coercion in the mobilization process is coercion into sexual slavery in comfort stations that brutally violated women’s human rights and did not recognize the freedom of retirement and going out, which even the public prostitution system in Japan acknowledged albeit ostensibly.

How can we say Japan has no state responsibility for comfort women when data from the Japanese military and government demonstrate that it had officially launched, run and overseen these comfort stations? In this sense, it should be noted that talking about Japan’s state responsibility based merely on whether forced mobilization was made by government officials (as former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe did) may reduce the scope of discussion and therefore be misleading.

(2) Compensation for individual victims

As for compensation for Korean women forced to serve as comfort women for the Japanese military, the Japanese government basically contends that their legal responsibility for such compensation has been terminated under the Agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea for the Settlement of the Problem Concerning Property and Claims and for Economic Cooperation. They claim that they created a “national fund” to provide compensation and medical welfare services for the victims with an aim of expressing their apology and remorse on a moral level aside from their legal responsibility and duty of compensation.

The South Korean government and academic circles overall, in contrast, believe the Agreement between Japan and the Republic of Korea for the Settlement of the Problem Concerning Property and Claims and for Economic Cooperation did not terminate Japan’s responsibility for compensation claims, for the issue of comfort women was not taken and discussed as one of the agendas during the negotiations for the agreement back then. Besides, there are two contrasting theories over the meaning of the agreement’s provision on the resignation of people’s claims: “renunciation of diplomatic protection rights” and “renunciation of individual rights of claim.” As the Japanese government has advocated the former, it is suggested that what was relinquished under treaties and agreements between South Korea and Japan was Korea’s diplomatic protection rights—not the rights of claim of individual victims.

(3) Use of terms

The term “comfort women serving the military” has been conventionally used in Japan. Serious questions have been raised, however, over the voluntary implication of “serving the military” and the male-centric, female-belittling meaning of “comfort women.” What was forced upon these comfort women, after all, was the exact opposite of love, sympathy, caring and compassion that the word “comfort” originally stands for.

South Korea has widely used the term “women labor corps,” as the issue of Korean women forcibly drafted for sexual slavery was initially raised under that title, with the distinction between “women labor corps” and “comfort women” being unclear in the memories of abusers and sufferers. A prime example of this is that a South Korean civic group organized to address the issue has the former term in its Korean name. It has been indicated, however, that “women labor corps”—which mobilized single women as labor force for war plants—needs to be distinguished from “comfort women” who were mobilized to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.

The term “comfort women” has been widely used in North Korea, Japan, China and other Chinese character-using countries and is being established in government documents, expert studies and statements by civic groups in South Korea, too, on the ground that the term has been found in many historical data, including Japanese military records and official documents from the Japanese Governor-General’s Office back in the 1940s.

The United Nations and other international organizations generally use the term “military sexual slaves.” It has been argued that the use of this term should be promoted in South Korea and be spread to Japan, North Korea and China, for it indicates the real mechanism of the comfort women system and is fully established as an English term.

It has been over two decades that the victims of the comfort women system broke their long silence to speak the truth and call for resolution of the issue. The issue of comfort women, however, still remains unaddressed, and many of the old victims have passed away without seeing the Japanese government offering its official apology and compensation. The statements by Japanese chief cabinet secretaries Kato and Kono led to greater coverage of issues regarding comfort women in Japanese textbooks for middle and high schools, but amid mounting criticism from the Liberal Democratic Party and right wing activists following the launch of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform in 1997, accounts of comfort women were deleted or reduced in middle school textbooks authorized in 2001 and other middle/high school textbooks screened onward. The high school textbooks that passed the government screening in 2007 included no acknowledgements of the Japanese Armed Forces’ involvement in the mobilization of comfort women.

Although the U.S. House of Representatives and many parliaments all around the world have adopted resolutions on comfort women and recommended the Japanese government to address the issue since 2007, its stance still remains unchanged.

Considering that the biggest goal of so-called historical rectification is to heal the wounds of victims, those who are suffering the most from the delayed resolution of the issue would be the elderly, former comfort women. With this frustrating and sad reality in mind, we should continue to join hands with feminist and human rights activists and academic groups in Japan and elsewhere around the world and raise the issue of comfort women to urge the Japanese government and society to resolve the issue.