One of the most bizarre consequences of the wholesale rape that took place at Nanking, China in 1937-1938 was the response of the Japanese government to the massive outcry from Western nations. Rather than stifle or punish the soldiers responsible, the Japanese high command made plans to create a giant underground system of military prostitution – one that would draw into its web hundreds of thousands of women across Asia. “The Japanese Expeditionary Force in Central China issued an order to set up comfort houses during this period of time,” Yoshimi Yoshiaki, a prominent history professor at Chuo University, observes, “because Japan was afraid of criticism from China, the United States of America and Europe following the cases of massive rapes between battles in Shanghai and Nanking.”<\/p>\n
The plan was straightforward. By luring, purchasing, or kidnapping between eighty thousand and two hundred thousand women – most of them from the Japanese colony of Korea, but many also from China, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia – the Japanese military hoped to reduce the incidence of random rape of local women (thereby diminishing the opportunity for international criticism), to contain sexually transmitted diseases through the use of condoms, and to reward soldiers for fighting on the battlefront for long stretches of time. \u00a0Later, of course, when the world learned of this plan, the Japanese government refused to acknowledge responsibility, insisting for decades afterwards that private entrepreneurs, not the imperial government, ran the wartime military brothels. But in 1991 Yoshimi Yoshiaki unearthed from the Japanese Defense Agency’s archives a document entitled “Regarding the Recruitment of Women for Military Brothels.” The document bore the personal stamps of leaders from the Japanese high command and contained orders for the immediate construction of “facilities of sexual comfort” to stop troops from raping women in regions they controlled in China.<\/p>\n
The first official comfort house opened near Nanking in 1938. To use the word comfort<\/em>in regard to either the women or the “houses” in which they lived is ludicrous, for it conjures up spa images of beautiful geisha girls strumming lutes, washing men, and giving them shiatsu massages. In reality, the conditions of these brothels were sordid beyond the imagination of most civilized people. Untold numbers of these women (whom the Japanese called “public toilets”) took their own lives when they learned of their destiny; others died from disease or murder. Those who survived suffered a lifetime of shame and isolation, sterility, or ruined health. Because most of the victims came from cultures that idealized chastity in women, even those who survived rarely spoke after the war – most not until very recently – about their experiences for fear of facing more shame and derision. Asian Confucianism – particularly Korean Confucianism – upheld female purity as a virtue greater than life and perpetuated the belief that any woman who could live through such a degrading experience and not commit suicide was herself an affront to society. Hence, half a century passed before a few of the comfort women found the courage to break their silence and seek financial compensation from the Japanese government for their suffering.<\/p>\n “Comfort Women” during the war: Some of the brave “Comfort Women” who have come forward to tell the truth about their abuse in recent years:<\/p>\n Culled from: The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II<\/a><\/p>\n
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