The Japanese government was directly involved in developing and operating military brothels where hundreds of thousands of Asian girls and women were forced to work as sex slaves during Word War II, according to a recently declassified U.S. report.
Issued by General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers on Nov. 15, 1945, the 36-page report offers the most detailed account yet of how the military brothels — euphemistically called "comfort stations" or "houses of relaxation" — were run during Japan’s aggression throughout Asia.
Japan has denied any official approval of the brothels, arguing they were created by civilians. But the report, based on statements of Japanese prisoners of war and documents confiscated by the U.S. military, said operators received licenses from the Japanese military and worked under its direct supervision.
The documents were obtained from the National Archives by an international team of researchers affiliated with the University of California, Riverside and Seoul National University under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The report is expected to give ammunition to human rights activists who have been fighting for reparations for the surviving victims of what some scholars refer to as the "Pacific Holocaust."
Former sex slaves want the Japanese government to pay reparations and admit its responsibility in an official letter of apology similar to the U.S. admission that its evacuation and imprisonment of Americans of Japanese ancestry from 1942 to 1945 was a "national shame" and its compensation of surviving victims.
An estimated 200,000 to 400,000 women from Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines and other countries that Japan occupied during the 1930s and 1940s were forced to work in the brothels.
According to the report, sex slaves were provided with room and board, but they had to split medical expenses for treating their sexually transmitted diseases with the brothel operators, and had to pay for their clothes and grooming out of a small stipend they were supposed to receive.
In fact, the women, who were abducted or tricked into the brothels by agents for the Japanese government, never received any payment, former "comfort women" told researchers. Sex slaves were to get one day off a month, but that, too, was ignored, the women said.
Prices for sexual services varied, depending on the rank of the customer and the ethnicity of the sex slave. Officers paid more than enlisted men. Japanese sex slaves cost the most, followed by Koreans.
According to the report, brothel operators were required to keep a daily log that included information on the number of soldiers served, their rank and payments received, along with the name of the brothel, stamped with the seals of the owners and the women.
Brothels were established under strict regulations and were sanctioned by military authorities in any areas with large numbers of troops, the report said. "Inmates of these brothels are regularly inspected for venereal diseases," it also said.
No one knows how many victims are still living, because many remained too ashamed to come forward. On the Korean peninsula, about 330 victims have come forward since the 1990s. Those still living are now in their 70s and 80s.
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