Endless Discomfort: Understanding the Plight of Korean Comfort Women

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The term “comfort women,” or ianfu in Japanese, is a euphemism referring to women coming from Japan and its colonies during the Second World War who, voluntarily or involuntarily, rendered sexual services to the Japanese Imperial Army (Soh, “The Comfort Women,” par 1). Those who volunteered were the earlier comfort women – Japanese prostitutes who responded to the calls of the military for the service while many others, out of poverty and desperation, were forced to enlist as a volunteer (Hicks 503).

Eventually, however, there came a shortage of these women volunteers as Japan rapidly expanded its control over Asia, to such a point that local women in colonized areas had to be coerced to serve in the so-called comfort stations (Yoshimi 100). Most scholars agree that the number of these women is somewhere around 200,000. It is believed that women from Korea comprise 51.8% of that estimated number (KOIS, “Comfort Women,” par 8).

Recruitment

The Japanese began setting up comfort stations in its colonies beginning in 1932 with various methods of recruitment, as told by comfort women survivors (Hicks 503). As previously mentioned, they were mostly volunteers until scarcity pushed the military into coercion of women within their occupied territories.

Soh enumerates that victims were either abducted forcibly from their homes or promised to be sent to factories as workers, only to be imprisoned in military brothels (“Japan’s Responsibility,” par. 1). Suzuki further adds that recruitment by Japanese soldiers could be as arbitrary as rounding up some random women at gunpoint or raping before bringing them to comfort stations (“Japan’s Comfort Women,” par 5). However, local human traffickers were also responsible for such acts, Suzuki clarifies.