"Comfort Women"

The definition of “Comfort” is: “a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint”.(Oxford Languages). However, for these women there was no comfort, either physically, emotionally or mentally. Many things happened during the Second World War which we may never know about (which may be just as well). “Comfort Women” were ‘almost’ one of those things.

Before and during World War 2, the Imperial Japanese Army enslaved these women from occupied countries and territories to ‘use’ them. The Imperial Japanese Army wanted to stem the continuous rape of wpmen by the soldiers and so opened up Comfort Stations, where the men could release their sexual tension and to stop or avoid S.T.Ds. However, the women they used did not go willingly! It is estimated that 90% of these “Comfort Women” did not survive the War. These women were (usually) young, some as young as 12 years of age, and they came from ordinary families and were brought up in an everyday way. Just how were they ‘caught’ then?

Some were coerced into thinking that they would be working as a nurse, in a factory or some other kind of decent job with the thought of good wages. They traveled, sometimes for 3 days, and by the time they arrived at their destination and “realized” — it was too late! For the very young, these poor innocent girls had no idea of where they were or why they were there — until it really was too late for them! Others were kidnapped. Lee Ok-seon was running an errand for her mother when a group of uniformed men burst out of a car and dragged her into the vehicle and she was taken to a Comfort Station. Lee Ok-seon was only 14 years of age. The young and innocent girl became one of the thousands of “Comfort Women” who were used during the years between 1932 and 1945.

Lee Ok-seon tells us: “It was not a place for humans”. Young Soo Lee, a 90 year old survivor, says: “I never wanted to give comfort to those men, I can never forgive what happened to me”.

A few of these women are alive to tell their stories and experiences today. Many died of sexually transmitted diseases and some died from complications from the ill-treatment they received. Some committed suicide. In order to ‘hide’ the truth, most of the files kept at these Comfort Stations were destroyed when the Imperial Japanese Army realized that they were losing the War. Some of these women were executed by the soldiers they may have serviced, so the numbers of the “Comfort Women” can only be estimated from 200,000 upwards. The women who were ‘taken’ from Japan, Korea and Taiwan were expected to do their patriotic duty. Those who were ‘taken’ from other countries were looked at ( and indeed treated) as spoils of war.

The human dignity of these women was trampled on. The soldiers paid a sum of money to the proprietor of the Comfort Station (from my own research, none of the women received any money). Some of these “Comfort Women” individually served between 10 to 60 men in a day. Some had one day off a month whilst others had no time off at all. A lot of these women were not able to have children after the evil treatment they had received.

So what are the stories and experiences of these women> I must warn you, their details are graphic and difficult to read:

An unnamed Taiwanese victim: “I am sorry to make you hear such a terrible story”. “My fiancee had been drafted by the Japanese military and was sent to the south. I was helping my father with his business at home. One day, the Japanese police called me and said that they had a job for me to prepare metals and mend torn clothes for the soldiers. I did not want to go but was told that all men and women must come because the country was at war and that everybody must follow the General National mobilization Law. So I went. There were some other women like me too. We got up in the morning, washed our faces and cooked breakfast to feed the soldiers. We washed their clothes and mended torn clothes. Then, at night, we were called and confined to a room — it was a terrible job. At night I died. I felt as if I was dead. I had a miscarriage. Even now when I think about it, tears come to my eyes”. This interview was taken in 1996.

Maria Rosa Henson, a Filipina: Maria was 15 years old when she was taken by Japanese soldiers occupying the Philippines and forced to be a “Comfort Woman”. “We began the day with breakfast, after which we swept and cleaned our rooms. Then we went to the bathroom downstairs to wash the only dress we had and to bathe. The bathroom did not even have a door, so the soldiers watched us. We were all naked and they laughed at us. At two, the soldiers came. My work began, and I lay down as one by one the soldiers raped me. Every day, anywhere from twelve to twenty soldiers assaulted me. There were times when there were as many as thirty. I lay on the bed with my knees up and my feet on the mat. Whenever the soldiers did not feel satisfied, they vented their anger on me. Every day, there were incidents of violence and humiliation. I shook all over. I felt my blood turn white”. This is from the book “Comfort Woman”.

Chong Ok-sun was born in 1920: “At the age of 13, I had to prepare lunch for my parents who were working in the field and so I went to the village well to fetch water. A Japanese soldier surprised me there and took me away, so that my parents never knew what had happened to their daughter. I was taken to the police station in a truck, where I was raped by several policemen. When I shouted, they put socks in my mouth and continued to rape me. The head of the police station hit me in my left eye because I was crying. That day I lost my eyesight in the left eye.

After 10 days or so, I was taken to the Japanese army garrison barracks in Heysan city. There were around 400 other Korean young girls with me and we had to serve over 5,000 Japanese soldiers as sex slaves every day — up to 40 men per day. Each time I protested, they hit me or stuffed rags in my mouth. One held a matchstick to my private parts until I obeyed him. My private parts were oozing with blood.

I think over half of the girls who were at the garrison barracks were killed. We were tortured and I was hit on the head so many times that all the scars still remain. They also tattooed me on the inside of my lips, my chest, my stomach and my body. I fainted. When I woke up, I was on a mountainside, presumably left for dead. A 50 year old man helped us and I returned to Korea, scarred, barren and with difficulties in speaking, at the age of 18”. With this experience, there is much more to read but I felt the details too graphic to write them down here.

Kum Ju-hwang was born in 1921: “I thought I was drafted as a labour worker when, at the age of 17, the Japanese village leader’s wife ordered all unmarried Korean girls to go to work at a Japanese military factory. I worked there for 3 years, until the day that I was asked to follow a Japanese soldier into his tent. He told me to take my clothes off. I resisted because I was scared, I was still a virgin. But he just ripped my skirt and cut my underwear from my body with a gun which had a knife attached to it. At that point I fainted. And when I woke up again, I was covered with a blanket but there was blood everywhere. From then on, I realized that during the first year I, like all the other Korean girls with me, was ordered to service high-ranking officials, and as time passed, and as we were more and more ‘used’, we served lower-ranking officers. If a woman got a disease, she usually vanished. We were also given ‘606-shots’ so that we would not get pregnant or that any pregnancies would result in miscarriage.

We only received clothes two times per year and not enough food, only rice cakes and water. I was never paid for my ‘services’. I worked for five years as a ‘comfort woman’, but all my life I suffered from it. My intestines are mostly removed because they were infected so many times, I have not been able to have intercourse because of the painful and shameful experiences. I cannot drink milk or fruit juices without feeling sick because it reminds me too much of those dirty things they made me do”.

Hurang So-gun was born in 1918: “When I was 17 years old, in 1936, the head of our village came to our house and promised to help me find a job in a factory. Because my family was so poor, I gladly accepted this offer of a well-paid job. I was taken to the railway station in a Japanese truck where 20 or so other Korean girls were already waiting. We were put on the train, then onto a truck and after a few days’ travel we reached a big house at the River Mudinjian in China. I thought it was the factory, but I realized that there was no factory. Each girl was assigned one small room with a straw bag to sleep on, with a number on each door.

After two days of waiting, without knowing what was happening to me, a Japanese soldier in army uniform, wearing a sword, came to my room. He asked me “will you obey my words or not?”, then pulled my hair, put me on the floor and asked me to open my legs. He raped me. When he left, I saw there were 20 or 30 more men waiting outside. They all raped me that day. From then on, every night I was assaulted by 15 to 20 men. We had to undergo medical examinations regularly. Those who were found disease-stricken were killed and buried in unknown places. One day, a new girl was put in the compartment next to me. She tried to resist the men and bit one of them in his arm. She was then taken to the courtyard and in front of all of us, her head was cut off with a sword and her body cut into small pieces”.

The name “Comfort Women” is a translation of the Japanese word “ianfu” which is a euphemism for “prostitutes”. Thankfully, official documents have been found ‘proving’ that this really happened, including photographs. Reflecting on the dehumanized status of these women, Army and Navy records, when referring to the movement of “Comfort Women”, always used the term “units of war supplies”.

There are more testimonies but the details are just too graphic for me personally to write down. I cannot imagine the terrors of these women and young girls but can see how this destroyed their lives. Thankfully, this was stopped and the Japanese officers involved received ‘some’ punishment by the Japanese authorities at the end of the War. This is one of the largest human tafficking cases we have seen and in 2014, China released documents it said were “ironclad proof” that these women were forced to work as prostitutes against their will. A 2011 clinical study found that “Comfort Women” are more prone to showing symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), even 60 years after the end of the War (Wikipedia).

The last surviving victims have become public figures in Korea, where they are referred to as “Halmoni”, which is the affection term for “Grandmother”.

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