The Comfort Women Issue
Tsutomu Nishioka's article about "comfort women issue".
The claim that “the Japanese army mobilized 200,000 Korean women as sex slaves and slaughtered many of them after the end of the war” is incorrect. This report will clarify common international misunderstandings regarding the comfort women issue.
It has been alleged that “wartime Japan forced 200,000 Korean women to serve as ‘comfort women,’ that is to say ‘sex slaves’ in the war zone. Then immediately after the war, many of the women were massacred.” Misconceptions such as these are in contradiction to the established facts, yet they are being spread throughout the international community. South Korean non-government organizations in particular have been working agressively to disseminate such misunderstandings.
Of course, it is a fact that a large number of Korean women, along with Japanese women, became comfort women and suffered greatly as a consequence. This was unforgivable from the standpoint of today’s values by which Japan as well as South Korea prohibit the comfort women system and prostitution. There are differences also from one country to another in how history is viewed. In this sense, we do not see it as a problem that South Korea’s perception of history is different from that of Japan.
With the above premise in mind, the purpose of this essay is to provide a clear explanation of the facts and how they differ from common misconceptions among non-Japanese who may not be as familiar with this history.
The claim that “the Japanese army mobilized 200,000 Korean women as sex slaves and slaughtered many of them after the end of the war” is incorrect. This report will clarify common international misunderstandings regarding the comfort women issue.
It has been alleged that “wartime Japan forced 200,000 Korean women to serve as ‘comfort women,’ that is to say ‘sex slaves’ in the war zone. Then immediately after the war, many of the women were massacred.” Misconceptions such as these are in contradiction to the established facts, yet they are being spread throughout the international community. South Korean non-government organizations in particular have been working agressively to disseminate such misunderstandings.
Of course, it is a fact that a large number of Korean women, along with Japanese women, became comfort women and suffered greatly as a consequence. This was unforgivable from the standpoint of today’s values by which Japan as well as South Korea prohibit the comfort women system and prostitution. There are differences also from one country to another in how history is viewed. In this sense, we do not see it as a problem that South Korea’s perception of history is different from that of Japan.
With the above premise in mind, the purpose of this essay is to provide a clear explanation of the facts and how they differ from common misconceptions among non-Japanese who may not be as familiar with this history.
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