Japan History: This article discusses the controversial topic of "Comfort Women" throughout Asia. It tries to clarify the term and the history behind it.
Over the past years you might have seen, read or heard about the continuous dispute of comfort women. This term has caused and is causing a lot of controversial debates.
During World War two, the Imperial Japanese Army fought against many different asian countries such as China, Taiwan, Philippines, etc. As the Imperial Japanese Army gained territory, the army build camps where they forced natives young teenage women to become sex slaves. These Women are known today as "Comfort Women".
The term "Comfort Women" was not coined until years after the war. Around the 90's, the japanese term "ianfu (慰安婦)", which means prostitute, was translated to English as "Comfort Women"
Until today, it is hard to tell how many asian women were forced to become "Comfort Women". The estimates range from 50,000 to 400,000.
Around the 90's, different asian countries united and demanded apologies and compensation from Japan.
As for Japan, Japan paid different amounts to different countries to compensate and apologize. They paid South Korea about 800 million dollars and created a foundation called the "Asian Women's Fund" back in the 90's. The purpose of the foundation was to provide help, support and compensation to all the other countries that suffered under these forced actions. Twelve years later the foundation was dissolved (2007).
In Japan, the term and the history that is connected to this term is still very controversial (wikipedia). While other asian countries claim that there were about 200,000 to 400,000 "Comfort Women", Japanese History Professors say that the figure ranges between 10,000 and 20,000. Although none of this is an excuse for the past.
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| Photo by Lindsey Turner |
Japan asked the United Nations for a revision but the United Nations rejected that proposition.