Women made to become comfort women

Japanese Military and Comfort Women >Women made to become comfort women - South Korea

Women made to become comfort women - South Korea

During the Sino-Japanese war Korean women with Japanese women were sent to comfort stations which the Japanese military set up in various places of occupied China. As the war expanded into the Pacific-Southeast Asian region, many Korean women were sent there too.

It appears that first prostitutes were recruited from Korea to go to comfort stations abroad. Later daughters of poor families were recruited by various means. It is known that frauds in the name of good jobs began to be practiced from this time. There are testimonies that girls were recruited against their own will by coaxing and intimidating. From Korea girls under 21 years old were taken to comfort stations, which was prohibited in Japan. Among them there were even girls who were 16 or 17 years old.

Kimiko Kaneda: courtesy of Taisuke Katsuyama

The case of Kimiko Kaneda

She was born in Tokyo. Her father was a Korean who later became a priest and her Mother was Japanese. Just after her birth, she was taken over to the relatives of her father in Korea. Her childhood days were difficult and solitary.

In 1938, when she was sixteen years old and worked as a housemaid, her friend recommended that she work in different, better place. She was sent to a comfort station in Zaoqing, China with other girls who were deceived in a similar way. Because of her resistance she was stabbed with bayonet in chest and her wrist was broken by a Japanese soldier. Such wounds remained unremedied until her death. Out of a desire to forget her real pains, she became an opium addict and in 1945 was set free in order to receive medical care. Thus she could survive until the end of the war. (Full text of her testimony)

A Map of the comfort station in Zaoqing as, drawn by Kimiko Kaneda.