Japan’s responsibility for the so-called “comfort women” is downplayed by the government and omitted from national histories. However, activists are trying to bring Japan’s history to light.
The History Behind Comfort Women
Thousands of women and girls in countries controlled by the Japanese Imperial Army were forced into sexual slavery as “comfort women” during the Asia Pacific War (1931-45). When survivors from South Korea sued the Japanese government in the early 1990s, demanding an apology and compensation, Japan was forced to face this part of its past. Ten cases were filed in total.
People across Japan founded organizations to endorse this struggle for justice in partnership with advocacy groups in the survivors’ home countries, inspired by the survivors’ courage and impelled by a sense of duty as members of the perpetrator state. The Association for Supporting the Kanpu Lawsuit, the Association for Supporting the Lawsuits of Chinese ‘Comfort Women,’ and the Association for Supporting the Lawsuits of Chinese ‘Comfort Women,’ were among them.
Following an investigation, historians uncovered that the Japanese military was involved in the comfort women scheme. The politicians apologized though they did not give compensation to the victims of the scheme. In a 1993 statement made by then-chief cabinet secretary Kno Yhei, the government acknowledged the military’s involvement and the practice of ‘coercion’ in the recruitment process.
It also expressed its “sincere apologies and regret” and vowed to “never make the same mistake again by permanently engraving those issues in our minds through the research and teaching of history.” Rekishi ninshiki (‘historical view’ or ‘understanding of history’) became a significant issue for the Japanese people in the aftermath of the declaration, who had tended to identify as victims of their military.
Revisionism
When it became clear in 1996 that all government-approved lower secondary school textbooks discussed the comfort women problem in accordance with the Kono declaration, historical revisionists launched a counter-offensive against the view of Japan as a perpetrator. It was a success: within five years, only a few textbooks mentioned the problem, and 80% of schools adopted those which avoided the subject.
A revisionist view that denies Japan’s history of military sexual harassment and contradicts the Kono statement is now prevalent, thanks to conservative politicians, including former Prime Minister Abe Shinz.
The US House of Representatives passed a resolution in 2007 demanding that Japan recognize its historical responsibility for comfort women. Others followed suit. The Abe administration declined, claiming that private agents, not the military, had abducted women and taken them to “comfort stations.”
Recently, the Japanese government intervened in the construction of comfort woman memorials in South Korea and the Philippines, the countries where the crimes took place, as well as in the United States and Germany, where transnational comfort women advocacy took place. Citizen organizations in Japan are now pursuing state compensation and informing the public about the facts about comfort women. There has been a lot of research done on this.
Legal Means
Between 1995 and 2007, Noriko Mori served as a lawyer for Chinese survivors. She spoke with hundreds of Japanese women activists who had gained new perspectives on history and memory after meeting and listening to survivors in person. Even after the 2015 Japan-South Korea deal, she has been looking for a legal solution in Japan.
One of the conditions of this agreement was that the Japanese government stated unequivocally that the deal was not a state compensation. Survivors from other nations were not included in the deal (the Chinese government has avoided taking a clear stance for political reasons).
A historian’s perspective
Yoneko Ishida is a Chinese historian. She visited survivors and their families in China’s Shanxi Province regularly between the mid-1990s and the late 2010s with the Shanxi Community for Uncovering the Truth, which she co-founded. Ishida’s perspective as a historian was shifted after her interactions with surviving comfort women. When the first survivors started to narrate her encounters, a debate arose whether the testimony could constitute historical evidence.
The controversy reached a head when Ueno Chizuko, a feminist academic, chastised historians for their unquestioning confidence in material evidence while denying the importance of oral testimonies. After relying on historian-produced sources in the past, Ishida and the Shanxi Group sought first-hand testimony to cross-check accounts.
New Generation
Yoneda Mai, an acupuncturist born in 1984, was the youngest of the activists. She is a member of Hainan NET, an organization dedicated to assisting Hainan Island survivors. Yoneda traveled to Hainan to study Chinese after visiting survivors there. She and other members of Hainan NET refer to themselves as the “grandchild” generation, dedicated to passing on what she has experienced to the “great-grandchild” generation.
Yoneda met a survivor for the first time when she was a college student. In 2008, she saw Huang Youliang testify in court; she was both horrified and moved by her story: Huang had traveled from a remote Chinese village to fight in a Japanese court.
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