The South Korean Comfort Women Issue Takes A New Twist

Mention comfort women and what immediately comes to mind are the Japanese troops during WWII .Recently however, it was revealed that the Japanese did not have exclusive notoriety for the use of these South Korean comfort women. After World War ll ended in 1945, a later batch of comfort women operated for the sole purpose of serving the sexual needs of US military stationed in South Korea. They were known as camptown women, or Western princesses.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/anokarina/25692888150/in/photostream/

How comfort women came to be

Comfort women is the English term for the Japanese “ianfu,” meaning prostitute. The nomenclature comes from their dwelling places called comfort stations that were being erected in Japan and Japan-occupied territories, under orders from officers of the Japanese Imperial Army. The first comfort station was built in 1932 in Shanghai, China for a worthy purpose – to stop the rampant rapes of women by Japanese soldiers. With comfort stations, or brothels, the soldiers could simply enter and have a woman for sex, without having to rape her.

The practice continued into 1937, when World War ll began, and lasted until it ended in 1945. Comfort women were found in South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Burma, where comfort stations were set up. Their total numbers vary, with various researchers putting them at a low of 45,000 to a high of 410,000. But the South Korean comfort women made up 80% – 90% of all the women, according to Korean activist Kim Il Myon. Many studies indicate that the Koreans were the favored ones by the Japanese soldiers for their youth, inexperience, and freedom from sexually transmitted diseases.

Japan, recognizing the sufferings and pains its soldiers had inflicted on the comfort women, made several acts of atonement. Among them are the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, the Japan-ROK Basic Treaty of 1965, the Asian Women’s Fund in 1994, and the 2015 settlement reached between the leaders of the two countries. In addition, past and present prime ministers have offered countless sincere apologies and heartfelt remorse for their acts.

On the case of the camptown women, their forced prostitution began when the US military arrived in September 1945 to set up a transition government. The second world war had ended, Korea had gained her independence, and the US occupied the south end while the Soviet Union occupied the north end to help the new nation establish their government system. The United States built their military bases in South Korea and took over the Japanese stations while officially declaring that prostitution was illegal. Off the record, they simply stepped into the Japanese shoes and had their fill of the Korean prostitutes. This practice went on into the 1980s, with the South Korean government’s support and backing.

ROK officials encouraged the young girls to engage in sex with the Americans and brainwashed their minds into believing that they were helping the country. The government was anxious to keep the US military to deter other nations’ plans to attack South Korea. They were also aware that the influx of hard foreign currency would go on if the Americans stayed.

But the forced prostitution of the latter-day comfort women came into public knowledge when 122 former comfort women sued the ROK government for pushing them into prostitution. They wanted an apology and compensation, especially now in their old age, failing health, and utter poverty. Ostracized and rejected by mainstream society for their alleged immoral acts, they have no one to turn to. The Seoul High Court sided with their case and ordered  South Korean government to pay them 7 million and 3 million won for each woman.