Comfort Women

[KirinMan]

Hiroyuki, could you answer why you think that a Japanese person is bringing this material to the forefront now?

What is your opinion about that?

 

[hanachan]

It isn't a foreigner that brought these documents to light, but a Japanese person.

In one document dated March 13, 1946, and unearthed last year by Kanto Gakuin University historian Hirofumi Hayashi, Dutch prosecutors quote a Navy employee as saying women in occupied Indonesia were rounded up, accused of fraternizing with Japanese and abused as "a pretext to putting them in a brothel."

His research is not only about Japan.

[Summary] ﾂ"A Historical Study of the US Military's Policy toward Prostitutionﾂ"
in The Journal of The Association for Research on the Impact of War and Military Bases on Women's Human Rights, No.7, March 2005. HAYASHI, Hirofumi
[This is a summary of my article in Japanese.]ﾂ ﾂ ﾂ
窶氾鯛?敘ｽﾅｽjﾂ「ﾆ但ﾆ陳?椎?ﾆ谷ﾅ坦窶堙個青ｫ窶佚篠催ｴ窶堙娯?氾ｰﾅｽjﾂ」 ﾂ『ﾂ鞘?板青ｫﾂ・ﾂ静ｭ窶侏?・ﾂ人ﾅ陳?ﾂ』窶佚ｦ窶啖ﾂ坂??ﾂ
The Sexual violence and pro-prostitution attitude of the US military have been severely criticized in Japan and other countries. Several articles have recently been devoted to the study of the US military's pro-prostitution policy in Japan during the US occupation and in the 1950s. These studies demonstrate that the US military protected and even encouraged prostitution for their soldiers. However, only few attempts have so far been made at the historical survey of the policy toward prostitution of the US military, including the military authorities in Washington DC and expeditionary forces stationed at various parts of the world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the US military's policy toward prostitution from the beginning of the 20th century, when the US acquired overseas territories such as Guam, the Philippines and so on, to the 1950s. The War Department adopted the policy of suppressing prostitution in the early 1910s, partly because it was influenced by the progressivism in those days, but mainly because it was afraid of the spread of venereal diseases. Although this policy has been maintained for a long time, it began to waver during the Second World War because of the development of an infallible remedy for venereal diseases. Since venereal diseases came to be easily cured, the policy virtually began to be relaxed abroad while it was still maintained for public principle in order not to be blamed at home. Briefly stated, the US policy has been different from that of Japan and European countries that officially regulated prostitution.

What is Comfort wemen?
This issue has been getting more and more complicated.

 

[diceke]

His research is not only about Japan.

Now, I can imagine an American shouting, "Do not offend my country!"

 

[pipokun]

Hiroyuki, could you answer why you think that a Japanese person is bringing this material to the forefront now?
What is your opinion about that?

I think it is about the time for mainly Koreans to know they are used by the Japanese liberals.

 

[Hiroyuki Nagashima]

Hiroyuki, could you answer why you think that a Japanese person is bringing this material to the forefront now?

His opinion is not the Japanese general will.
In addition,
Even if he does any kind of study, he is not interfered with.
His freedom of speech be guaranteed.
In Japan, your freedom of speech is guaranteed, too.

 

[KirinMan]

His opinion is not the Japanese general will.

You know if I made a comment like, all Americans do this, or the general American will is that, people would bite my head off saying you don't talk for me. Then again I would not be so bold as to even make a comment like that regarding a divisive issue like this one.

Regarding this Comfort Women issue, and your opinion that it didn't happen, that is your opinion and probably, most likely the opinion of the hardcore ultra-nationalists. That much is obvious.

However I don't think that gives you the right to talk for the nation as a whole, there are roughly 130 million Japanese people.

 

[Han Chan]

His research is not only about Japan.

I don't think anyone is trying to deny that US soldiers used japanese prostitutes during and after occupation. However, it is worth remembering that the japanese authorities were directly involved in setting up facilities for the US soldiers. Appearently there were a widespread fear that the US soldiers would go on the rampage imediately after the onset of occupation. Paradoxically the recruitment of prostitutes were organised in order to protect the Japanese women.

 

[KirinMan]

I don't think anyone is trying to deny that US soldiers used japanese prostitutes during and after occupation.

Both of which continue on even today.

Paradoxically the recruitment of prostitutes were organised in order to protect the Japanese women.

The government probably learned that part when dealing with the "Comfort Women". It wouldn't surprise me one bit if that was the overall "Comfort Women" plan from the start, "protect the Japanese woman".

Except there weren't enough prostitutes to fill their needs, hence the problem we have today.

 

[pipokun]

About the military brothel, many countries incl. PRC set up and used it.

 

[Davey]

Anyone read the Washington post? There is a big advertisement in it about Comfort women:

A GROUP of Japanese MPs have placed a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post that denies Japan's military forced up to 200,000 women into sexual slavery during World War II.

Read here:

The Australian
De Telegraaf (Dutch)
The Inquirer

 

[The7thSamurai]

Yeah the Japanese government set up brothels in Japan after the surrender to preserve the "purity" of the Japanese blood. It recruited women saying that they would be doing an honour to their country if they worked at one of these places. Unfortunately for the Japanese government many (most?) of the soldiers simply went out and found girlfriends on their own. From what I've read it was pretty easy for them too. However this did lead to a number of single mothers raising children as the US soldiers weren't going to stay around for ever. I doubt many of them even knew they had children.

One thing I'd like to look into is what happened to these children born from US fathers. Can't say I've met too many people in their 50s or 60s here in Japan who look mixed. Wonder where they are?

 

[Elizabeth van Kampen]

Thank you so much D B. I saw it too this morning, in several Dutch papers.

Amazing, but I am not surprised.

 

[diceke]

One thing I'd like to look into is what happened to these children born from US fathers. Can't say I've met too many people in their 50s or 60s here in Japan who look mixed. Wonder where they are?

Good question! 800-900 of those GI babies are buried in the Negishi Foreign Cemetery.

 

[The7thSamurai]

Good question! 800-900 of those GI babies are buried in the Negishi Foreign Cemetery.

Just found this:

The U.S. military's Stars and Stripes newspaper reported in its March 10, 1947 edition that by June Japanese women in the Tokyo-Yokohama district would have given birth to 14,000 Amerasian babies. Two years later Miki Sawada, the founder of the Elizabeth Sanders Home, an orphanage for mixed-race children, estimated U.S. servicemen had sired 200,000 babies in Japan. Masami Takada, head of the Children's Bureau of the Welfare Ministry, put the figure at 150,000.

When the bureau conducted a survey in spring of 1952, though, it found a total of only 5,002 Amerasian babies. The Japanese public feared that mixed-race children threatened the cherished homogeneity of Japanese society. Various "scientific" studies had demonstrated that Japanese of mixed blood were inferior to Japanese of pure blood.

...

The true number of illegitimate Amerasian children will never be known. In the early postwar years many would have died in obscurity. It was the sight of an Amerasian baby left dead on a train luggage rack in February 1947 that moved Sawada to establish the Elizabeth Sanders Home. Today, the remains of 900 Occupation babies lie in the Negishi Foreign Cemetery in Yokohama, according to Yasuharu Tamura, a historian of the city. Only three are in marked graves.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?fl20020428a1.htm

 

[ukuleleman]

Double jeopardy, Double standards, and a tinge of racism

All of you guys should watch the following video from PBS's talk show. The interview was done by Fareed Zakaria.
Just type "COMFORT WOMEN ISSUE" in the search box of YouTube.

 

[The7thSamurai]

ukeleleman, you realise that Dr Shudo Higashinakano is a denier of the Nanking Massacre. You might want to be careful where you pull your "facts" from.

 

[ukuleleman]

This board is very unfair

My past message was unfairly deleted just because I posted a piece of hard evidence stating that the American soldiers raped more than 1000 Japanese women in their Japan occupation era, and as a result the brothels were built to prevent them to committed the crime.
It's a pity that one who deleted my message are trying to hide the fact to justify his/her own position, which is the same way the Allies had been doing after the WWII.

 

[KirinMan]

My past message was unfairly deleted just because I posted a piece of hard evidence stating that the American soldiers raped more than 1000 Japanese women in their Japan occupation era, and as a result the brothels were built to prevent them to committed the crime.
It's a pity that one who deleted my message are trying to hide the fact to justify his/her own position, which is the same way the Allies had been doing after the WWII.

U.S. troops used 'comfort women' after WWII


No, it wasn't deleted. It was moved to the appropriate location.

 

[Han Chan]

US House committee passes comfort women resolution

Japan urged to officially apologize:

NHK:

US House committee passes comfort women resolution

A committee of the US House of Representatives has passed a resolution urging Japan to officially apologize for forcing women to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during World War Two.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee endorsed the resolution by 39 votes to 2 on Tuesday after part of its wording was softened.

The resolution, submitted by Democratic Congressman Mike Honda, urges Japan's government to officially acknowledge that the former Japanese military forced women in Asia and the Pacific islands to provide sex.

It also urges Japan to officially apologize for these acts and accept historical responsibility.

The resolution will be put to a vote at the plenary session of the House, possibly in July.

An NHK correspondent in Washington says it now seems likely that the House will approve the resolution by a large margin.

ASAHI:

U.S. pushes on 'comfort women'

WASHINGTON--Japan should apologize and accept responsibility for the sexual exploitation of thousands of "comfort women" during World War II, according to a resolution overwhelmingly adopted Tuesday by the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

The resolution, known as House Resolution 121, was passed by a vote of 39-2.

In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his chief Cabinet secretary, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, said that it would be inappropriate to comment on the actions of a foreign legislature.

But Abe displayed a degree of displeasure at the vote, saying, "A very large number of resolutions are passed by the U.S. Congress and I believe this resolution is just one of them."

He added that he had explained his position to Congressional leaders during his April visit.

An executive of junior coalition partner New Komeito, however, criticized the June 14 ad placed in The Washington Post by 44 Diet members and others, which in part triggered the committee vote.

"I believe restraint should be exercised on comments from the Japanese side that could lead to misunderstanding about past positions (of the Japanese government)," said Kazuo Kitagawa, New Komeito secretary-general.

Some historians claim that hundreds of thousands of women were systematically taken from their homes, mostly in Korea and China, to serve as sex slaves in the Japanese army's brothels during the war.

In Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement after the committee vote, which said in part, "I look forward to the House of Representatives passing this resolution and sending a strong message that we will not forget the horrors endured by the comfort women."

The resolution could be passed by the entire House as early as July.

Among the revisions suggested by Chairman Tom Lantos prior to the committee vote was a statement confirming the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance.

The part of the resolution calling on the prime minister to give a public statement to serve as an official apology was also revised to state that an official apology by the prime minister would help demonstrate Japan's sincerity and remove doubt over past statements by the Japanese government.

"The government of Japan's unwillingness to offer a formal and unequivocal apology to the women forced to be sexual slaves in World War II stands in stark contrast to its role in the world today," Lantos said before the vote.

"Japan is a proud world leader and a valued U.S. ally, making its unwillingness to honestly account for its past all the more perplexing."

Lantos added: "The advertisement (in The Washington Post) suggests that these women, who were forcibly and repeatedly raped by soldiers, were engaged, and I quote, in 'licensed prostitution that was commonplace around the world at the time.' This is a ludicrous assertion totally counter to the facts."(IHT/Asahi: June 28,2007)

BY YOSHIYUKI KOMURATA

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN