A Japanese comfort woman

Japan Times reports a story of a Japanese comfort woman:
Shirota lived a relatively quiet life until she was 14 and her mother died in 1935. Her family bakery went bankrupt, and her father began gambling. To pay off his debts, he sold her to a brothel. Prostitution was legal then, and Shirota's was a common fate. With no other choice, she accepted it with resignation.

At first, Shirota was an assistant, helping the older women with their clothes and makeup. But gradually, she was brought into the reality of the brothel. When she was 18, she was ordered to serve her first customer. Locked in a room, she was raped. She was bedridden for days, and was treated for syphilis.

Her father continued to gamble, and took out loans from the brothel. A broker in Yokohama sold her to another brothel in Taiwan.
Indeed it was a tragedy, but her case proves that she was not "coerced by a gun" but bought from her father. And the brothel was set up by the broker who sold her to another broker. No Army officials interrupted.

It would be a myth that the majority of comfort women were Koreans. Prof. Hata estimates that 40 per cent of them (less than 20,000) were Japanese.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A troubling position on 'comfort women'

Asahi Shimbun fabricated "comfort women"

Greenpeace Is a Thief