Talk:Comfort women

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Possible POV pushing, maybe

Amazingly enough, this article seems to be very well balanced. Except that this line in the Kono statement section "Although this statement gave the pretense of being an apology" seems to be wandering off into speculation or at least using a weasel word (And yes, I am aware of the irony there). But, the reference seems to have gone by way of the dodo (The Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues) so does anyone know if this was a direct quote from the source, a paraphrase, or was this added in by someone? If it was added in, may I suggest a change to a more neutral "Although this statement was offered as an apology" and leaving the rest of the entry as is to show the problems with the Kono statement? --Jusenkyoguide (talk) 05:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

harvnb link disconnects

I just fixed a bunch of broken {{harvnb}} link disconnects in this article. Some remain.

• CSIS 2007, p. 142
• CSIS 2007, p. 139

I don't see a cited source named CSIS -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Protected Page Edit Request

{{editsemiprotected}} can add this hyperlink to the reference "Ex-Japanese PM Denies Setting Up Brothel": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032300304.html

 Done Thanks for the link! — Deon555^talk_{I'm BACK!} 07:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Protected Page Edit Request

I think a case of recruitment of comfort women by fraud in China by Japanses Imperial Army should be added. According to Judgement of Tokyo Trial(International Military Tribunal for the Far East), p1022, these sentences appear.

During the period of Japanese occupation of Kwelin, they committed all kinds of atrocities such as rape and plunder. They recruited women labour on the pretext of establishing factories. They forced the women thus recruited into prostitution with Japanese troops.Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East, p1022 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dermajay (talk • contribs) 16:29, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

At the summary part, article mentions about recruitment of comfort-woman. It syas "It has been documented that the Japanese military itself recruited women by force." followed by "However Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata stated that there was no organized forced recruitment of comfort women by Japanese government or military."

I think it gives impression to the readers that in most cases comfort women were recruited by militaly, in organized manner. But among sources, there is UN report which blames comfort woman, and it says

"In many cases private recruiters, asked by the comfort station operators who represented the request of the military authorities, conducted the recruitment of the comfort women. Pressed by the growing need for more comfort women stemming from the spread of the war, these recruiters resorted in many cases to coaxing and intimidating these women to be recruited against their own will, and there were even cases where administrative/military personnel directly took part in the recruitment"

(McDougall, Gay J. (June 22, 1998), CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF SLAVERY—Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict, retrieved 2007-11-12 . )

This reads like in most cases recruitment has been done by private recruiters, and only in some cases administrative/military personnel directly performed recruitment.

I think this POV is different from POV of the article, and can be added to the article, to keep neutral POV matter.

I know there are many revisionists in Japan, and the matter of recruitment would have been discussed frequently, but I couldn't find debate about this UN report.(I checked some versions of discussions, not all, so may be there was discussion about this source. If you know, I appreciate if you tell me.) --124.210.21.10 (talk) 19:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I would like to delete this part in Evidence, "Historians have searched for evidence of the Army and Navy's coercion, and some written proof has been discovered, such as documents found in 2007 by Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi." as they have not found any evidence yet (2011), just Yoshimi Yoshiaki and Hayashi Hirofumi had a press conference on 2007. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AU1206 (talk • contribs) 16:38, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Rape as weapon of war, illegal warfare or terrorism?

Is rape a legitimate weapon of war, illegal or unconvetional warfare or is it terrorism? It seems that rape is still commonly used as a legal weapon of war today. For example, Russian soldiers used rape against Georgia in the South Ossetia conflict [1] and it was used in the Congo [2] Truthbedarned (talk) 16:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)Truthbedarned

I would say no, but I don't think this is really a question to be addressed on this page. This page is about discussing the Comfort woman article. Tweisbach (talk) 01:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Historical Error -- in reference to a Prime Minister's Name

In the following section taken verbatim, there is reference to "Abe Hiroshi" as the "prime minister". I'm not sure who the reference is supposed to be, but he was never Prime Minister of Japan.

''Evidence Rangoon, Burma. August 8, 1945. A young ethnic Chinese woman who was in one of the Imperial Japanese Army's "comfort battalions" is interviewed by an Allied officer.

After its defeat, the Japanese military destroyed many documents for fear of war crimes prosecution.[49]

Historians have searched for evidence of the Army and Navy's coercion, and some written proof has been discovered, such as documents found in 2007 by Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi.[20] The surviving sex slaves wanted an apology from the Japanese government. Abe Hiroshi, the prime minister at the time, stated that there is no evidence that the Japanese government instituted a brutal sex slave industry.'''''

J. Glass

Asian Women's Fund

Hi. I was doing a little research on this topic and according to this website here: http://www.awf.or.jp/e3/dissolution.html the Asian Women's Fund was closed in 2007. Shouldn't this information be added? Also, the Asian Women's Fund was not wholly a "private fund". though of course there are many private contributions to the fund, it is ultimately the Japanese government which is financially responsible, according to the JPRI paper here: http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp77.html

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.1.44.156 (talk) 04:41, 10 January 2011 (UTC) 

Interview not article

THis article seems to be an interview, should maybe be refiled under wikiquotes?

Clean-up

According to the victims, they got the sexual acting more than 30 times a day. Ahn, who is from Netherland which is the only nation convicted in Europe, is the victim coming out the first in the world, 1990 year. She testmonied this in the interview with KBS documentary, <KBS special>. She lived in Indonesia (Netherlands' east india) at the very time of WWII. She had run away from the sexual slavery, but was caught by Japanese military again. Ellen van the flugh also revealed she was another victim.

— Original text

According to the victims, they were forced to perform over 30 sexual acts in a day. In 1990, Ahn, an ex-comfort woman from the Netherlands—the only nation to be convicted in Europe—was the first victim to come forth. She testified in "KBS Special", a documentary on the Korean Broadcasting System, that she lived in Indonesia during WWII and had run away from the sexual slavery, but was recaptured by Japanese military. Ellen van the flugh revealed she was another victim.

— Working text

The intro to this article reads like it was written either by an idiot or somebody who doesn't speak English fluently. Suggest clean up

Most of the intro is fine. The fourth paragraph ... well, you have a point. In any case, it's out of place here; assuming it's worth keeping at all, it should be moved down into the section on the victims and their testimony (and extensively rewritten.) Unfortunately, I can't access the video it links and I frankly can't make out all of what the paragraph is trying to say. --Yaush (talk) 04:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The information might be useful but has no place in the introduction. It is the personale experience of a single victim, not the experience of all of them. the third and fifth paragraph should probably be combined. Dimadick (talk) 07:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the paragraph was written by someone unfamiliar with the English language, but could contain useful information, though perhaps not for the lead. I removed it for now and modified the lead a bit, but perhaps we could work on it here on the talk page. My first going-over is at the top of the section, feel free to keep working on it. — Bility (talk) 23:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

NPR

http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/06/04/134271795/comfort-women-untold-stories-of-wartime-abuse — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.226.6 (talk) 09:45, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Comfort Women as VOLUNTARY PROSTITUTES

The comfort women were VOLUNTARY PROSTITUTES who got paid high salary. Even the US military report proved that the comfort women were well-paid. (http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html)

• In the US report interrogated Korean comfort women, though they said the Japanese agents (NOT MILITARY) induced them by not specifying the job details, it is possible that they lied because they were ashamed to admit that they knew what they were going to do.

There were vile brokers who deceived girls sometimes but Japanese police officers were cracking down on those crooks. (Document to increase police officers to crack down on vile brokers --> http://makizushi33.ninja-web.net/aa08.jpg)

And there were also the advertisements (http://photo.jijisama.org/ianfu.html) on papers seeking the women who want to work as comfort woman.

There were also Japanese comfort women. The prostitution was legal at that time.

Those who claim the comfort women were forced sex slaves are Koreans and they don't have any proof for their claims but only their ever-changing statements. Wiki kitkat (talk) 02:46, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Stop. Now. This is not the place to argue your opinion. This is a place to provide reliable sources to discuss improvements to the article. Period. There are many reliable sources that explain that your opinion is only one side, and not the one that is supported by most reliable sources. Neither of the sources you provide above qualify as reliable sources, nor do they, somehow, disprove everything else in the article.

If you want to make a specific suggestion for a specific change, feel free to do so. Otherwise, stop attempting to use this page as a soapbox. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

(http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html) This link is very valid. Not only is the source contempory for the period, just before the end of WWII but it's only bias is towards the Japanese as it is written by members of the US Army trying to decide if the womens situation can be used in leaflet drops in Korea. Only anti Japanese POV prevents such an important document being presented here. I could be wrong, was the US Army pro-Japanese whilst fighting them during WWII maybe Pearl Harbour only increased pro-Japanese feeling in the USA. Let's have a section about the payment of these women, this document states that they earned 750Yen a month. I can provided sources if needed on the wartime salaries of the Japanese army, 6Yen per month for a private and 550 Yen per month for a general. In their book "Japanese Army of World War II" By Philip Warner and Michael Youens it says that the pay in the Japanese army ..."varied between the General's pay of 550 Yen a month and the second class private's pay of 6 yen a month...) Page 4. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Zk8bF_ShpsoC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=japanese+army+pay+yen+wwII&source=bl&ots=tFQ4ZgGUk9&sig=d9mgw6KhaOeAMgrjq9er8jc6TRs&hl=en&ei=oGPXTo-NB42dOoCgjckO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false The link includes a brief section relating to the range of pay on page 4 quoted above. Now of course not all women earned the same the US Army report says that at one camp the rates were halved but even at the halved rate each comfort woman earned the same as 63 Japanese soldiers. We should have a section on their payment. (They would all have been rich women if Japan had won the war - with some savings - unfortunately as they lost the wartime Yen crashed like the Reichsmark.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.69.50.27 (talk) 16:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree - this link is not given in the article although it is mentioned in the outline about 20 comfort women interviewed by the USA army. We should include the primary link. Also in the outline where it mentions this document it has a definate POV against Japan. The US army report says the girls lived in luxury, were able to refuse clients etc... Stated in the main article is that the girls were lured against their will for a few hundred yen. Sounds like peanuts today but an advance of 300yen was a vast amount of money, no-one can seriously beleive the girls were actually signing up to "roll bandages". It should be made clear the scale of the money the girls received and what it meant in real terms (when a korean peasant family would be lucky to earn 6 yen a year). This way the reader can decide for him/herself whether the individual knew the job or not.

The girls in the USA Army report were Korean. Women had no position in Korean society at the time, as today daughters are no longer part of your family after they are married. We can see from gender equality measurements that women only fare a little better in todays society in Korea. With the vast amounts of money involved the scope for coruption can be seen, 300Yen in WWII was a vast amount of money.<redacted>— Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.199.109.228 (talk) 01:29, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I had to redact the above comments for being at best pure speculation and at worst racism. Anyone who attempts to edit Wikipedia to "make a point" of anything is breaking WP:NPOV and should be blocked. Thanks for not actually doing so in the article, but doing it here isn't helping anything. As always, look for what reliable sources today and explain that. Even explaining the relative value of 300 yen in today's money is a violation of the prohibition on original research unless some other reliable source has already done so. As for the primary source mentioned above, we can't include it because there is no evidence on that website that the document is authentic. WHile I can't read Spanish, looking through some of the general website info run through Google Translate, it appears to be the work of only one person, and I don't see any evidence that person is a historical expert or document collector, so we can't just link to the cite under some presumption that it's a real US Army document. If you could find authentication of the document, we could possibly include it in the External links section, though we can't rely on it as a reference (because it's a primary source), and Wikipedia requires that, in principle, we work primarily from secondary sources. Primary sources may only be used to show literally what they say, with no interpretation whatsoever (not even an interpretation if the statement is honest or fiction). Qwyrxian (talk) 02:05, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite know why you said the previous post was racist. I think you have some kind of agenda here. I'm from the UK, it is not racist if someone says to me that my ancestors in 1400 lived in a stick and mud hut probably wore the same unwashed clothes all his life and never washed himself and probably spent 16 hours a day ploughing fields. If he was of the lower classes he would have lived like that. It's a fact! It's not racist! Common practice at the time was to pay someone (a dowry) to take a daughter off your hands to make a family alliance. If you offered my ancestor 5 years earnings for his daughter I think I can guarantee he would have accepted. That’s not insulting to me. That's not racist against English people that’s the way it was and in some poor countries today probably still is. These are some early 20th century photos of Seoul - definitely not a nice place before the Japanese occupation in my opinion. And the guy in the previous post seems to have described it quite well. http://www.flickr.com/photos/21607958@N06/2091364536/in/photostream/

I think that is what this guy is getting at, people, including you, are judging history by today’s standards and not finding out what the situation and conditions were like at the time.

The article page in the "outline" section says "On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen". Now 300yen today will perhaps buy you a packet of noodles to boil in a saucepan, is that what they were given? No! They were given an advance for their families of 300yen which was 50 months salary of a Japanese soldier at the time. And of course with that kind of money involved and monthly earnings of 750yen a month did anyone really believe they would be "rolling bandages"? You have to be pretty naive to believe that.

As to the source http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html this is in fact already listed in the Comfort Women article Notes as source 21, listed as "Yorichi 1944". Alex Yorichi was the interpreter for the US Army that interviewed the comfort women. The paragraph in the article that links to this source is in the "1.2.1 Outline" section. It is:- "The United States Office of War Information report of interviews with 20 comfort women in Burma found that the girls were induced by the offer of plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen.[21]"

What surprises me is that these interesting notes in the report are not included in the Comfort Women article:- 1. "A "comfort girl" is nothing more than a prostitute or "professional camp follower" attached to the Japanese Army" 2. "a few had been connected with "oldest profession on earth" before" 3. ..""knows the wiles of a woman." She claims to dislike her "profession"" 4. "They lived well because their food and material was not heavily rationed and they had plenty of money" 5. "While in Burma they amused themselves by participating in sports events with both officers and men, and attended picnics, entertainments, and social dinners. They had a phonograph and in the towns they were allowed to go shopping." 6. "The girls were allowed the prerogative of refusing a customer." 7. "in an average month a girl would gross about fifteen hundred yen. She turned over seven hundred and fifty to the "master". " 8. "average Korean "comfort girl" to be about twenty-five years old, uneducated, childish, and selfish. She is not pretty either by Japanese or Caucasian standards."

Anyway, what I propose is that we edit the section as follows:- "The United States Office of War Information report of interviews with 20 comfort women in Burma found that the girls were induced by the offer of plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen, equivalent to over 4 years salary of a Japanese soldier[21]. Some comfort women like those interviewed in Burma earned more than a Japanese General per month the equivalent per month of 125 Japanese soldiers. To look at it another way the comfort women earned every month over 10.4 years salary of a Japanese soldier [92]". (we include the source about the Japanese army salaries as source [92].)

Perhaps I forgot an important point from a quote from source 21:- "The contract they signed bound them to Army regulations and to war for the "house master " for a period of from six months to a year depending on the family debt for which they were advanced." If the contract was for a year then the girls received around a loan of 300yen for a years contract. If that was their only salary then for one year's contract the received 5 years salary of a Japanese soldier. Can anyone still beleive that they thought they would be "rolling bandages"?

So maybe edit as follows:- "The United States Office of War Information report of interviews with 20 comfort women in Burma found that the girls were induced by the offer of plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen as a family loan for 6 months to a years contract, equivalent to over 4 years salary of a Japanese soldier[21]. Some comfort women like those interviewed in Burma earned more than a Japanese General per month the equivalent per month of 125 Japanese soldiers. To look at it another way the comfort women earned every month over 10.4 years salary of a Japanese soldier [92]".

(we include the source about the Japanese army salaries as source [92].) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.69.50.27 (talk) 14:17, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

For reference, please refer to the following reliable sources:

A former comfort woman's saving:

• Soh, Chunghee Sarah (2008). The comfort women: sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. pp. 183–184. ISBN 0226767779. The discovery of her savings account records at the Shimonoseki post office in 1992 revealed that it had a balance of 25,245 yen saved during her life as a comfort woman in Burma and Thailand from 1942 to 1945
• Ishikida, Miki Y. (2005). Toward Peace: War Responsibility, Postwar Compensation, and Peace Movements and Education in Japan. iUniverse. p. 63. ISBN 0595350631. One Korean former comfort woman, Mun Ok-chu, working in Burma, saved 26145 yen for two years and seven months, 843 yen a month, and sent 5000 yen back to her parents, though she was not able to withdraw money when military currency lost its value in 1945.
• Driscoll, Mark (2010). Absolute erotic, absolute grotesque: the living, dead, and undead in Japan's imperialism, 1895-1945. Duke University Press. p. 309. ISBN 082234761X. Even though these establishments were expensive to operate and prices were high— one short session with a forced sex worker normally cost between 1.5 and 2 yen ( when the monthly salary of a Japanese soldier was between 6 and 10 yen)—many profited handsomely.

About "Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No.49"

• Soh, Chunghee Sarah (2008). The comfort women: sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. p. 34. ISBN 0226767779.

Also for reference, this article can be edited by WP:AUTOCONFIRMed users.

―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:56, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

At the same time I made the original post about "Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No.49" I made a request for the original document to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) www.nara.gov tel: (301)837-2098 for confirmation that the document on the website above was not faked. I received a reply from NARA yesterday with a copy of the document. If anyone is interested in also receiving a copy of this document these details might speed up the process:-

LISTED FULL TITLE: United States Office of War Information Psychological Warfare Team attached to U.S. Army Forces India-Burma Theater APO 689, Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No. 49, date of report: October 1, 1944

DOCUMENT LOCATION: Bureau Of Overseas Intelligence, Foreign Morale Analysis Division, {Reports On Japanese Morale, 1943-45}; Entry NC 148 378; Box 445; Records of the Office of War Information [OWI], Record Group 208. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.69.50.27 (talk) 10:13, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Treatment of comfort women - First paragraph

Approximately three quarters of comfort women died, and most survivors were left infertile due to sexual trauma or sexually-transmitted disease.[37] According to Japanese soldier Yasuji Kaneko[38] "The women cried out, but it didn't matter to us whether the women lived or died. We were the emperor's soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance."[39] Beatings and physical torture were said to be common.[40]

The quote from Yasuji Kaneko is taken out of context here. We know he is not talking about rape in the military brothels because we know how much he would have had to pay, alot of money, rather he is talking about raping Chinese girls during the China theatre.

In the same same section "Treatment of comfort women" we have a section about Hank Nelson.

Hank Nelson looks at alot of original sources but he has unquestioning opinions he is even unaware of all the apologies made by the Japanese and, for example with Korea, he is unaware of reparations already made. According to this Wikipedia article (and from a Korean point of view):- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

Japan has apologized for the general war including in Korea 14 times.

Japan has apologized to Korea individually for its colonialism and the war 15 times.

Japan has apologized for the comfort woman situation in Asia (includes Korea) 5 times.

Japan has apologized to Korea individually for Korean comfort women 4 times.

These apologies do not include the compensation paid to comfort women under the 1965 treaty, that the South Korean government withheld from individuals and instead invested it in industry. A treaty which exempts Japan from any further payment obligations to South Korea.

It also does not include the setup of the Asian Women's Fund which included a personal signed apology to individual comfort women from the Japanese Prime Minister at the time (Murayama).

We can read some of Hank Nelson's work here:- http://www.japanfocus.org/-Hank-Nelson/2426

An intersesting primary source here is:- "Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, Amenities in the Japanese Armed Forces, using information available to 31 March 1945". I cannot find this published anywhere on the web. It is available from the Australian War Memorial Institute and the Australian National Archives. Unfortuately unlike the document supplied by NARA above there is a charge for this document.

This source additionally states the prices to pay the comfort women (in Rabaul, New Guinea) and also mentions a Japanese soldier been executed for disabeying the rules of the brothel. There are other rates listed but here are the hourly rates:-

Half hour with Japanese girl - 2.5 yen

Half hour with Korean girl - 2 yen

So we can see again the high prices, that a Korean girl could earn a soldiers monthly salary in an hour and a half (3 hours if we presume like Burma she had to give half of her earnings to the house master/mistress). It is interesting to see that Hank Nelson calls the price difference between the Korean and Japanese girls as "racism". I could write a long commentary on what that implies but I won't just now.

In this ATIS report there are listed a series of brothel rules. Im going to look at rules 6 and 9 most of the others are listed on the link above for those interested:-

4. The drinking of liquor within the special warehouse is forbidden.

6. Hostesses will refuse pleasure to those who do not use prophylactic rubbers.

9. Violations of any of the above regulations by the hostesses will result in the withdrawal of their right to practice.

So.... if the girl did not wish to wait to finish her contract she had at least 2 ways to stop being a prostitute she could get drunk or she could have sex without a condom. Don't these rules imply that the girls wanted to be in the brothel? "...right to practise"! Especially with the large amounts of money earned.

The case of the 10 Dutch women including Jan Ruff-O'Herne is another illustration that comfort women were not slaves but prostitutes. They were captured and put into a military brothel in February 1944 they were released from the brothel in May 1944. Java was not liberated until the surrender of the Japanese. Jan Ruff-O'Herne has said in a recent interview she was released after 3 months, this wikipedia article says 4 months, what this wikipedia article doesn't say is why they were released. It avoids saying directly that the Japanese authorities found out that the Dutch women were not volunteers an so released them and punished the soldiers responcible. It skirts over this information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.69.50.27 (talk) 14:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Japanese contemporary laws regarding comfort women etc.. 1.Home Affairs Ministry Directive 77, February 18, 1938, stated that comfort women must be recruited in compliance with international law and prohibits the enslavement or abduction of women.

2. Imperial Army memorandum 2197, March 4, 1938 prohibits abduction as a recruitment method.

3.Home Affairs Ministry Directive 136, November 8, 1938, specifies that the women must be over 21, already prostitutes and that their families must consent.

(As a side note, ever heard that Korean people were forced to change their names to the Japanese style? Well changing the style was so popular at the beginning of Japanese rule that in 1911 a proclamation, "Matter Concerning the Changing of Korean Names" (朝鮮人ノ姓名改称ニ 関スル件) was issued barring ethnic Koreans from taking Japanese names and to retroactively revert the names of Koreans that had already registered under Japanese names back to the original Korean ones.) People were arrested for breaking these directives.

It is a source of embarrassment to most Korean people these days that Japan occupied Korea without any resistance. I'm sure many people have heard unsatisfactory excuses as to why this was the case. The excuse given to me most often is "there was no-one to lead the Korean people". Anyone with more than a basic knowledge of Korean history will know that none of these answers will do. The Korean people often rebelled against their leaders. The class system was only abolished with the Gabo reform of 1896. Around 95% of the population were in the lower classes of peasants (sangmin 75%) and slaves etc.. (Cheonmin - slaves, kisaeng etc..) and outcast "untouchables" (baekjeong). Everyone not surprised by the lack of resistance to Japan will surely be surprised by these rebellions, quite recent to the period (see the wikipedia article on the origins of the Donghak rebellion):-

1. In 1812 Hong Gyeong-nae led the peasants of Gasan in the northern part of Korea into an armed rebellion and occupied the region for several months. An army was sent to quell the rebellion and the revolt was only put down after a savage scorched-earth campaign. All over Korea, all the way to Jeju Island, peasants continued to defy the king in Seoul, the local nobility and wealthy landlords.

2. In 1862 half a century after the peasant rebellion led by Hong Gyeong-nae was put down, a group of farmers in Jinju, Gyeongsang, province rose up against their oppressive provincial officials and the wealthy landowners. This uprising was the result of the exploitation of destitute farmers by the local ruler. The rebels killed local government officials and set fire to government buildings. In order to appease the rebels, the government hastily revised the land, military and grain lending systems. It was an ineffectual attempt at reform, as many yangban in the central government were themselves deeply involved in such corruption. The revolt in Jinju triggered peasant uprisings elsewhere all over Korea; groups of farmers rose up with arms and attacked government offices in principal towns. Many government officials were executed. The uprisings were generally crushed by government troops. In 1862 the peasants of San-nam and surrounding villages took up arms against the elite, but were brutally butchered by troops. In subsequent years, peasants rose up in small groups all across Korea until 1892.

3. The Donghak Peasant Revolution, or the 1894 Peasant War (see the main wikipedia article).

I would suggest that the Korean peasants had had enough of their yangban rulers and with the defeat of the Chinese by Japan, the Gabo reforms introduced by the pro-Japanese cabinet removing slavery and the class system, the peasants finally saw some prospect of hope in their lives.

No-one relates to the peasants these days everyone likes to believe they were related to the Yangban class. It seems like no-one in Korea has any peasant ancestry anymore even though only about 5% were from the higher classes. How about the assassination of Queen Min? Everyone now says what a terrible thing the Japanese did but in the 1894 Peasant War the peasants involved wanted to destroy all the upper classes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.136.152.14 (talk) 14:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Section "Treatment of comfort women"

Please remove the section refered to below.

"Approximately three quarters of comfort women died, and most survivors were left infertile due to sexual trauma or sexually transmitted disease.[37]" (even though Japanese soldiers had been executed for failing to observe the "warehouse" rules which included using a rubber).

Am I the only person that see's how ludicrous this statement sounds?

""Approximately three quarters of comfort women died..." so we know how many comfort women there were do we? because about 75% have been recorded as dieing and around 25% have been medically tested and been declared infertile?

These are the numbers of comfort women given from the main article in order of it being read.

NUMBER DIED INFERTILE

20,000 15,000 5000

410,000 307,500 102,500

50,000-200,000 37,500-150,000 12,500-50000

200,000 150,000 5000

200,000-300,000 150,000-225,000 50000-75,000

100,000-200,000 75,000-150,000 25,000-50,000

200,000 150,000 5000

20,000 15,000 5000

170,000 127,500 42,500

(IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CALCULATE PERCENTAGES UNLESS YOU HAVE THE CORRECT NUMBER OF COMFORT WOMEN)

There is a good consensus there, isn't there?????????

Died 15,000-307,000

Infertile 5000-102,500

Even taking samples of comfort women how can anyone work anything out when the population estimate high is 20 times the population estimate low. For example, you have 15,000 dead bodies that could be a 75% death rate but it could also be a 4.88% death rate. If we don't know how many comfort women there were it is completely meaningless.

Unless all of these had stopped menstruating how were they tested for infertility? The first drugs to treat infertility were invented in 1960 Clomid and Pergonal. In fact there were no reliable tests for infertility at the time. Up to 1950, birds were the favorite embryological models, because of the technical accessibility of the avian egg.

These are the modern tests and sometimes many of these are used, as individually they are not conclusive.

Anti-Mullerian hormone testing - hormone discovered in the late 40's by Alfred Jost the first international workshop held by Natalie Josso in France in 2002.

Ovarian ultrasound - Ultra sound scan invented in 1961 by Ian Donald

Hysteroscopy - Pantaleoni who in 1869 performed the first hysteroscopy but not a normally performed technique until the 1970's and when Hamou revolutionized new techniques using new optics.

Laparoscopy - needs a miniture video camera!

Follicle stimulating hormone - hormone discovered in 1931 work and testing much later

Hysterosalpingography - this is an x-ray procedure using a fluoroscope (late 1950's) with the patient having an iodine contrast medium poored in the vagina etc.. unlikely to have been carried out regularly until the 1970's.

Endometriosis (damage to the fallopian tubes) from sexual disease was until the late 1960's early 1970's only discoverable post mortem.

BUT WAIT, I MUST BE WRONG! THERE IS A REFERENCE GIVEN - SOURCE [37] I PREDICT IT GOES BACK IN A LONG CHAIN OF SOURCES TO AN ORIGINAL REFERENCE FULL OF ANTI JAPANESE VITRIOL.

The source is:

de Brouwer, Anne-Marie (2005) [2005], Supranational Criminal Prosecution of Sexual Violence, Intersentia, pp. 8, ISBN 90-5095-533-9

This can be read on the internet here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JhY8ROsA39kC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=Supranational+Criminal+Prosecution+of+Sexual+Violence,+Intersentia,&ots=OByx_y4LYS&sig=Ilx_0NICqdwDqQpPO7pGlu3YTzY#v=onepage&q=Supranational%20Criminal%20Prosecution%20of%20Sexual%20Violence%2C%20Intersentia%2C&f=false

We find the reference on page 8, "Around 200,000 women held in slavery..... It is estimated that only 25% of the comfort women survied and that most were unable to have children as a consequence of the multiple rapes or the diseases that contracted following the rapes [29]"

Footnote 29 on page 8 says "Askin (1997) p.92" which refers to War Crimes Against Women: Prosecution in International War Crimes Tribunals By Kelly Dawn Askin.

You can read that on the internet here: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ThfzGvSvQ2UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Askin+(1997)&source=bl&ots=tosHcabuE8&sig=0DBwI8GyYj0FmQhHCr2gVPOcZ-0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=W5QSUN7CMYfD0QW6goH4CQ&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Askin%20(1997)&f=false

We find the reference on page 92 "Of the tenty-five percent who survived, most were unable to have children because of the brutal rapes or the diseases caught as a result of the rapes. [308]"

It is worth noting that Askin does not specify how many comfort women there were but just uses percentages.

Anyway here we go again there is another footnote 308 which says "See generally, Compensation Suit, supra note 243; Parker & Chew, supra note 173; Hicks supra note 258." Which this time leads us to footnots in 3 other sources.

Compensation Suit, supra note 243 - it's useless unless we know which compensation suit. The reference says "generally" so we are not likely to get specific references anyway. (Any help on this anyone?)

Parker & Chew is "Compensation for Japans World War 2 War-Rape Victims" which is not available for free online another book by Parker and Chew quotes this book however "When Sorry Isn't Enough".

P95 "Only about 25% survived this treatment.[6]"

Footnote 6 does not reference anything about infertility so this is our first dead end. It only refers to Japanese politician Seijuro Arahune saying that 145,000 Korean sex slaves died during WWII.

The entire assumption that only 25% survived and almost all were infertile rests on supra note 258 in "The comfort women" by George Hicks which is not available in its entirity on the internet but the introduction can be read here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Comfort-Women-Enforced-Prostitution/dp/0393316947#reader_0393316947

It is worth noting that on page 19 Hicks suggests about one-sixth died during the war. Can someone with the book please help and show us what it says on supra note 258?

Disputed testimony of an ex-soldier: About Seiji Yoshida

(Please add the texts below in the ===Disputed testimony of an ex-soldier===.)

In May 1996, weekly magazine Shūkan Shinchō published remarks by Yoshida made to them in an interview, admitting that portions of his work had been made up. He stated that "There is no profit in writing the truth in books. Hiding the facts and mixing them with your own assertions is something that newspapers do all the time too".[5][6][7] (Excerpted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiji_Yoshida#Memoirs_controversy)

And he regretted later in his life saying "I was stupid being utilized by people who profit from Human Rights Business.　（Excerpted/summarized from http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%89%E7%94%B0%E6%B8%85%E6%B2%BB_%28%E6%96%87%E7%AD%86%E5%AE%B6%29#.E6.A6.82.E8.AA.AC）

All the stories about kidnapping Korean women in his novel has not been proved. Wiki kitkat (talk) 02:38, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

 Done (partially). I've added the first bit. I have not added the second bit because it cites a wiki as a supporting source (see WP:SPS). The cited wiki is in Japanese, which prevented me from looking at it to try to get to the underlying supporting sources. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:34, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

South Korea army invaded in Vietnam

Japanese army paid to prostitute, and the prostitutes were highly paid. Because prostitutes were getting 1.5 times the salary of police officers. The following leaflets are written "Salaly = 300yen". convert to the current value of this amount, the amount become about 15,000$/1month. (Detail -> http://park6.wakwak.com/~photo/image/ianfu01.jpg)

When the South Korea army invaded in Vietnam, they did not establish a comfort station. As a result, In Vietnam, , the rape occurred frequently. And many "Koreans and Vietnam mixed-race children" borned. This issues called "Lai Daihan" in Vietnam. (Detail -> http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A9%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BF%E3%82%A4%E3%83%8F%E3%83%B3)

But "Japanese and Korean mixed-race children" most does not borned in Korea. All Korean Comfort Women does not give birth the mixed-race children. This means the Japanese have proved that it was properly managed for sex. Usually, slave does not get a salary. And "Contraception" is not called "Violence". At least, It's inappropriate that they called "slave".

• [Japanese] Set up a comfort station -> Rape has decreased -> Therefore "Japanese & Korean half-breed" were not born
• [Korean] Did not set up a comfort station -> Rape has increased -> Therefore many "Vietnam & Korean half-breed" were born

The theory is very simple.

Neither of those are reliable sources. A picture, basically by definition, can't be a reliable source, and that site (i'm not visiting it, but based on the URL alone, it's an SPS) doesn't meet wP:RS; the other site is another version of Wikipedia, and no wiki, including Wikipedia, counts as a reliable source. The rest is just your opinion/original research. If you have new reliable sources, please feel free to add them, but no information will be added to the article unless based on RS. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:55, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia believe the testimony of the beneficiary. Wartime prostitutes has no evidence. There is testimony only. There are No photo, No Archives and No testimony of the Japanese prostitutes. But Wikipedia believe the testimony of the beneficiary and admitted this page. It's madness. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wingwrong (talk • contribs) 01:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate Notes about Fig.1

The right ad was placed by Imai Agency, who is a private company, and the left was placed by 許(Huh) 氏, who is perhaps a self-employed procurer. Both are not published by Japanese official agancy. However, Notes [13]-[16] mislead the readers publishing by Japanese government. Especially note [15] has no relation with Fig.1 and note [16] is inconsistent with the pic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mzch (talk • contribs) 11:38, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I've removed refs 15 & 16 as having no connection to the picture. On your first concern, just to clarify--if you were worried about note 13 that says, "Keijō nippō (Newspaper published by Japanese government, Governor-General of Korea) July 26, 1944: Big recruitment for comfort women. Age: 17 to 23 year old women... Monthly salary: 300 yen or higher and a prepayment of 3000 yen.", then that shouldn't be a concern, because that's saying that the newspaper, not the advert, was published by the Japanese government. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

On the left ad, there is no mention of fact that it was put in Mainichi shimpō by Korean agent named 許(Huh)氏. Yes, the fact that the Korean civilian was recruting. On the right ad, There is the lack of fact that it put in Keijō nippō by Imai Agency, a private agency. Does what the advertiser does come down to the publisher in your country? For this reason, note [13] makes readers allow to misread. Mzch (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Fig.1 is a picture of ads for comfort women. However, The text in section Recruitment say, "Fig.1. Recruitment advertisements for comfort women[13]. Many women responded to calls for work as factory workers or nurses, and did not know that they were being pressed into sexual slavery[14]." This explanation is an absolute lie and inproper as basis for disguising confort women as factory workers or nurses since Fig.1 explains these ads placed by private agencies for comfort women. They states "Wanted comfort women." Who wanted women as factory workers or nurses? The picture is obviously improper in evidence. Mzch (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Reference link is broken or does not show the wanted content

In the "Journal articles" section the link provided by the citation:

"Yoneyama, Lisa (winter 2002), "NHK's Censorship of Japanese Crimes Against Humanity", Harvard Asia Quarterly VI (1)."

does not contain what it is supposed to contain. It only contains the words:

"Hacked by Suwario And WebR00t & MiLLiKuvvetler.org"

Could someone check and correct the link or warn the authors of the site about the possible hacking? I cannot do it myself.

(today is 2011/11/02) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baiotti (talk • contribs) 18:23, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

U.S. military prostitution

In August 1947, South Korean government was abolished "licensed prostitution". However, the Korean War begins, South Korean Army had construction comfort stations in four locations. And South Korean government hired 79 comfort women. In 1961, the South Korean government enacted "prostitution prevention law", the South Korean government appealed for a ban on prostitution. However the South Korean government has 109 locations in South Korea the construction comfort station for the U.S. military prostitution next year in order to earn foreign currency. (Detail -> http://h21.hani.co.kr/arti/cover/cover_general/30838.html)

Their are comfort station for the soldiers during the war. It is exactly the same as that conducted in WWII. The Korean government and the U.S. Army were needed the licensed prostitution during the war. Koreans caused the "Lai Daihan" issue in the Vietnam War because they didn't construction a comfort station. They have no rights that to condemn Only Japan. It's like racism.

Forced prostitution and prostitution for pay where the prostitute may actually depart and leave the country, is rather different. Attempting to use the common name for forced prostitution under the Japanese and later condoned prostitution appears WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. Student7 (talk) 23:24, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

That is, many women had been forced into prostitution in WWII , but anyone had not been forced into prostitution in Korean War. It's wonderful theory !

They claim "Involved in the war from Korea because colonized by Japan. Became on poverty because involved in the war. The poor were forced into prostitution.". Including it, they call "forced" . You need admin the "forced by U.S. army" if you admit that Korean's claims.

Or can you submit a phisical evidence that Empire of Japan abducted other than whore's testimony ?Wingwrong (talk) 03:08, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

By the way, please refute this theory someone. If anyone cannot refute, I hope to delete the sentence of beginning "sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II". That is not original research. There are many "objective evidence" that the U.S.Army established comfort stations in Japan and Korea. According to the definition of the Korean comfort women, They are victims that forced into sexual slavery by the U.S. military. At least, I cannot to permit that "comfort women" deal only with the Japanese military.Wingwrong (talk) 17:18, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

No way. We have very reliable sources saying that the Comfort women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Suzanne O'Brien: Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II. Toshiyuki Tanaka: Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and US Occupation. George L. Hicks: The comfort women: sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Forces. Maria Rosa Henson: Comfort Woman: A Filipina's Story of Prostitution and Slavery Under the Japanese Military. Sangmie Choi Schellstede, Soon Mi Yu: Comfort women speak: testimony by sex slaves of the Japanese military : includes new United Nations human rights report. Binksternet (talk) 17:32, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Separately, re your comment that there are many "objective evidence" that the U.S.Army established comfort stations in Japan and Korea, content related to that would be off topic in this article. The lead sentence of this article makes it pretty clear that the topic here is the term Comfort women as it relates to "... women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II." I took a look at the Recreation and Amusement Association article, and it looks to me as if such content wouldn't fit into that topic either. Perhaps it might fit in the Akasen article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Why Separate? Didn't you know "RAA: Recreation and Amusement Association"?　Or "GI Baby"? It's not "Akasen(赤線)". It called "Panpan". The Allies Has allowed to establish RAA. Because, 14,000 American GIs rape Occurred in Europe during World War II. Because, in Okinawa, US troops are estimated to have raped 10,000 Japanese women during World War II. Because, when the American was troops stationed in Japan, the first 10 days, 1,336 rape occurred in Kanagawa. These things, you know?Wingwrong (talk) 09:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

That topic is different. The Comfort women program was established before the US soldiers went overseas. The problems with the Comfort women program are its own, not mixed up with US problems. Binksternet (talk) 12:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That content does not appear to fall into the topic of "... women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II." If the assertion that "14,000 US troops are estimated to have raped 10,000 Japanese women during World War II" is supported by reliable sources, that appears to be something which ought to appear in WP, but it is off topic for this article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:29, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, "comfort women issue program of the U.S. military" is written in where? Is written in the item anywhere in the Wikipedia? If it have not written anywhere. It's the "concealment". Post here, or create a new item. Choose either.Wingwrong (talk) 00:50, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't know for sure what you're thinking of there. Your past comments here suggest to me that you're interested in having info re provision of sexual services to or use of those services by US military personnel in Japan documented in Wikipedia. Above, I suggested that the Akasen might be a place for such information to appear. Looking at that article, I see that it is categorized in Category:Red-light districts in Japan, Category:Prostitution in Japan and Category:Sexuality in Japan. That information might fit into some other articles in those categories as well; the Prostitution in Japan article seems to me to be a natural place for such information to appear. I googled around for some relevant sources, and you might look at

• Maria Höhn; Seungsook Moon (2010). Over There: Living With the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present. Duke University Press. pp. 100–104. ISBN 978-0-8223-4827-6.
• Joanne Liddle; Sachiko Nakajimo (2001). Rising Suns, Rising Daughters: Gender, Class and Power in Japan. Zed Books. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-1-85649-879-1.
• Jose Listé-Noya; Eduardo Barros-Grela (2011). American Secrets: The Politics and Poetics of Secrecy in the Literature and Culture of the United States. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 21–23. ISBN 978-1-61147-007-9.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, the correct meaning seems to have not communicated in English. Once again.

1. At the time, the U.S. military ruled Japan.
2. Then, began to rape occur frequently by American soldiers in various parts of Japan.
3. Therefore, the Japanese government had asked permission to open a comfort station against the U.S. military.
4. The U.S. military were allowed to do that. (In other words, the U.S. government was involved.)
5. At the time, "comfort fee" was the same as half price of the cheapest cigarettes box. The U.S. military forced the comfort women in wage of slave.

If you referred to as "slaves" that the Japanese army did, the U.S. military also did exactly the same thing. Sentence began before large-scale rape victim come out, Japan is conscientious. So, contrary to the "RAA-issue" of U.S. forces, half-breed of Japanese is not born almost. Do not align in the same category the "Akasen" and the "RAA-issue".Wingwrong (talk) 07:36, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Yoshimi Yoshiaki call "forced" the sex slave that "comfort women who became reluctantly because of poverty". (Yoshiaki-Yoshimi 吉見 義明, Fumiko-Kawada 川田 文子 (1997). 「従軍慰安婦」をめぐる30のウソと真実. 大月書店. ISBN 978-4272520503.

After the Japanese Occupation, incident has occurred that citizens will be raped by American soldiers in quick succession in the garrison. So, the Allies ordered the Japanese government to make the comfort station. However, to be published in the American newspaper photos of the soldiers line up to comfort station, criticism increases, becomes a major problem, the Japanese comfort station is obsolete. Then, comfort women suddenly lost their jobs. As a result, they stand on the street as prostitutes that deal with the U.S. soldiers because of poverty. However, the spread of venereal diseases due to poor environment, at last, they were placed under the supervision of an American military policeman again. (Yoshio-Fukuoka 福岡 良男 (July, 2004). 軍医のみた大東亜戦争. 暁印書館. ISBN 978-4870151505. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)

Based on Yoshimi's definition, "U.S. forces were to force the Japanese comfort women". I want to write this contents. Where I write this contents in "Comfort station" ? or New Contents ?Wingwrong (talk) 09:20, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

This appears to be covered in some detail in the Recreation and Amusement Association article. Also, it is not clearly (at least not to me) within the scope of this article, the lead sentence of which reads, "The term 'comfort women' was a euphemism used to describe women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II." Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:12, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

In another example, will the Abu Ghraib prison?('TIME' June 28, 2004) This is also an example of sexual slavery. Nevertheless, there is no article that about the sexual slavery of the U.S. military at all. Why be covered only the Japanese military in the item of "sexual slavery? This is not neutral. It's racist. If you referred to as "slaves" even if there is no evidence the General Headquarters has ordered, but U.S.Army also guilty.

Anyway, I add a "Recreation and Amusement Association" and "Abu Ghraib prison" as a related item.Wingwrong (talk) 06:28, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

This is all off topic, or tangential at best. The article is about Japanese establishing the comfort women program, not about any later crimes committed by others. Binksternet (talk) 07:58, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Korean wants to change to "sex slaves" the name of the comfort women. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has agreed it. Also the U.S. military as well as Japanese military, there is no difference at all to the essence.Wingwrong (talk) 03:30, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm... [3] and [4] say that the change in terminology seems to have been either ordered or suggested by Hillary Clinton, that Korean officials seemed ambivalent, and that Japanese officials are opposed. [5] says that Clinton ordered the change. [6] says that a State Dept spokesman said that he had no information on whether Clinton actually issued the order or the U.S. government has any preferred wording to describe those Korean women. [7] says that the secretary general for a Seoul-based interest group opined that the term "comfort women" in Korean carries the connotation that they are the victims of forced sex slavery, but that "comfort women" in English seems to loose that meaning. It's still an open question whether or not the terminology change issue will become a significant item of information. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:16, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 5 December 2011

In the section about how Comfort Women were treated, there are a few errors. First of all, the name of the Dutch comfort woman is spelled Jan Ruff O'Herne, not O'Hearn. Second of all, her "sisters" implies that Jan's actual sisters were with her in the brothel. This is not true. Her younger sister, age 7 at the start of the war, was in a prison camp. Her other sister worked in a town and was not captured due to her important job/position. To make this more clear, please write that Jan and her fellow Comfort Women were the ones being abused. Also, not all of them suffered abortions. Jan herself only talks about having one instance of abortion thrusted upon her in her memoir. Please do not speak for the other women if you are not certain about their medical history in the brothel. Along with this, it might be nice to note that Jan did eventually have children of her own, despite having sexual damage done to her body. Finally, please edit this last bit: "Several months later the O’Hearns were transferred to a camp at Batavia, which was liberated on 15 August 1945." Jan was the only one taken from her original camp, which was in Batavia. Her mother and sister had already been at the camp they speak of above. Perhaps say here that Jan's family, which was in this camp in Batavia, was liberated on August, 15th 1945, and she later met up with them.

Sources: 50 Years of Silence (memoir by Jan Ruff O'Herne), my great aunt is Jan Ruff O'Herne. I have had the pleasure of discussing her story with my grandmother (her sister), which has provided me with other details.

24.19.170.48 (talk) 05:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

We need to know what part of that is actually from 50 Years of Silence. We cannot use personally stories from your grandmother in Wikipedia articles per our rules on verification and reliable sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

 Not done for now: --Shearonink (talk) 03:04, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I've just found a couple of refs which help clarify things, and edited the content to bring it in line with these - and incidentally with what 24.19.170.48 says. Snori (talk) 08:37, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Note 16. lacks its evidences

The note 16. is adduced as an authority of the following sentens: "Many women responded to calls for work as factory workers or nurses, and did not know that they were being pressed into sexual slavery." However, the article by Dottie Horn doesn't adduce any evidences.--Mzch (talk) 09:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I want to be sure I understand your objection. The article has been quoted correctly in the note, and the quote indicates that this particular woman was recruited under the pretense that she was going to do factory work. There is no mention of false recruiting to work as nurses; is that the difficulty? --Yaush (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Then, this should be as below: "Some women were pressed into sexual slavery though they had applied for work as factory workers or nurses." Who concludes 'many women' instead of 'a woman (Pak)'? I think no one can add anything if he has an irresponsible quotes.Mzch (talk) 04:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

If you see the section on COMFORT WOMEN AS VOLUNTARY PROSTITUTES you will see that the women were advanced a sum of a few hundred yen. In the section INNAPROPRIATE NOTES ABOUT FIG.1 it mentions a poster offering an advance of 3000 yen. 300yen was 50 months (over 4 years) salary of a Japanese soldier of private rank, thats about half a years salary of a Japanese General. 3000 yen was 500 months salary of a Japanese soldier at the time that is over 41 years salary, that is a Japanese General's salary for 5 years. You have to be pretty niave to beleive that they thought they would be working in factories or as nurses, especially when a Korean peasant at the time earned less than 1 yen per month. If some guy came up to me today and said "I have a job for your daughter, its in a factory in China, I'm going to pay you an advance of $500,000 (5 year Generals salary today?) your Daughter will also earn a lot of money on top of that per month. I would probably say "I have 4 daughters can you get them all jobs like that?". No, not really. I wouldn't say that but some people would and at the time some people in their occupied countries said "for a commission I can find you other girls". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.122.179.225 (talk) 22:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Note 19. is improper

The note 19. are improper. "Judgment International Military Tribunal for the Far East" by Clancy makes no mention of Ministry of Foreign Affairs' resisting issuance of travel visas for Japanese prostitutes.--Mzch (talk) 09:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

is It means "She is go to war with herself. Comfort women were not abducted." ? Wingwrong (talk) 01:43, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... Note 19 appears to be cited in support of one or both of the following assertions

1. The military turned to acquiring comfort women outside mainland Japan, especially from Korea and occupied China.
2. Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels.

Particular pages of three separate sources are cited in the note. Two of the sources are not available online, and I have no access to these two sources. The link in the full cite of the (Clancey 1948) source goes to A linked chapter of Chapter 8 of that source That linked chapter does include page 1135, cited in note 19. That page appears to contain no support for the assertions mentioned above. Page 1022 of that source does seem to relate somewhat: "... and Liuchow in Kwangsi Province. During the period of Japanese occupation of Kwelin, they committed all kinds of atrocities such as rape and plunder. They recruited women labour on the pretext of establishing factories. They forced the women thus recruited into prostitution with Japanese troops. ...". Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:20, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Japanese military directed the brokers that to gather comfort women. There is the evidence. However, there is no evidence of the "Japanese army abducted a comfort woman" other than whore's testimony.

There's a possibility that dishonest brokers abducted comfort women. But it does not call the responsibility of the Japanese military. (In addition to speaking, most of the brokers were Korean because they speak Korean well.)

Please show me the evidence other than testimony that the military abducted. Why can not easy works anyone ? Are there victims 20 million ? U.S. judge sentiment and testimony only. Japan is different. Japan is emphasis on "physical evidence". Japan is a constitutional state.Wingwrong (talk) 03:49, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

You don't get to decide that evidence from the victims is irrelevant. We make decisions based on what reliable sources say. Do not attempt to turn this talk page into an argument about the issue--this is only for discussing how to improve the article, in a neutral way. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:45, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

You swallow the testimony and you don't say them nothing. But you don't believe the images or reports (about : "Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No.49" ) , and you say "Images and HTML reports can not be the evidence". I cannot believe if you can judge the fairness. When in WWII, Victorious nations does judge Japanese military in the "Military Tribunal for the Far East". What this is equitable ? If if you talk about fairness, first you deny, blame and regret the Military Tribunal for the Far East.

I need only "physical evidence". I did not say anything other than it. Wingwrong (talk) 08:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I've changed a subtitle to read "criticism" which is the more common one in controversial articles. The lead sentence represents the quality that is needed. A university professor researched it and claims a lower figure and no one coerced. If you can find original corroborating information, of similar quality, it can go there. Student7 (talk) 16:01, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

And Wingwrong, what I'm telling you, is that Wikipedia does not give preference to "physical evidence". Our guidelines are WP:RS. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:35, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

What you think? If it was written on Wikipedia that put down the U.S. Army ? Moreover, they are all lies, no evidence at all. What do you do ? You say "It's a lie,"that to the credit of the U.S. Army, don't you ? You say "provide evidence", don't you ? I said only it.

Koreans did not know until 2004 the existence of the Japan-Korea Basic Treaty. Because they're from a country ruled by hostile Japan. The comfort women issue came out before 2004. They told a big talk for the money when they don't know the Japan-South Korea Basic Treaty. So they cannot withdraw no longer. They even know that they had received huge reparations from Japan. So, they ware forced to say "Give me more. They just say lie. Why do you trust them? Why you can not have a logical decision? In all of their testimony, the evidence of testimony that does not exist in the world. Don't judge things only emotion.

Can I create a page in Wikipedia almost as if it were true that based on the testimony of 100 ? Than can I create "liar prostitute" page in Wikipedia because several million Japanese can testify "The Korean prostitute is a liar" ? This is just it that you are trying to do their.Wingwrong (talk) 07:48, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Wingwrong, please read WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:OR. Wikipedia is actually fairly simple: we report what reliable sources have already reported. We don't analyze data. We don't look for "the truth". We are an encyclopedia--a collection of information that other people (newspapers, academics, reliable book publishers, etc.) have already said. This is why I keep telling you that arguing here about what is and isn't true is a waste of time. Find us some books published by an academic publishing company, scholarly articles in academic journals, or similar sources, that include the information you want to include, and then we can consider including it. So, no, you couldn't create that article you hypothesize about, because you have no evidence (of the kind WP requires) to do so. We go by what historians say. And the vast majority (though not 100%) say that some (though not all) of the prostitutes from Korea who worked during the Japanese occupation (and possibly afterward, during the US occupation) were compelled to work--forced, enslaved, sold by their parents, etc. This is the evidence that's in the article--you can check the sources yourself. If you think that one or more of those sources don't meet the reliable sources guideline, then say that. But Wikipedia editors don't get to decide "many many historians believe X, but it's based only on personal testimony, and thus X is not valid." Ultimately, if that's the point you want to make, you need to write your own research paper and have it published in a history journal. Wikipedia is not the right place. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:31, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

That said (and said well, and which bears reading a second time), also note WP:DUE re viewpoints expressed by published reliable sources which are not currently mentioned in Wikipedia articles on topics where those viewpoints are relevant. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:07, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

United States Office of War Information Psychological Warfare Team attached to U.S. Army Forces India-Burma Theater APO 689, Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No. 49, date of report: October 1, 1944 (report 49) http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html this is in fact already listed in the Comfort Women article Notes as source 21, listed as "Yorichi 1944". Alex Yorichi was the interpreter for the US Army that interviewed the comfort women. The paragraph in the article that links to this source is in the "1.2.1 Outline" section. It is:- "The United States Office of War Information report of interviews with 20 comfort women in Burma found that the girls were induced by the offer of plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen."

The person using this quote in the Wikipedia article obviously never actually read report 49. Report 49 is important but is always ignored but people on Wikipedia because it contradicts their opinions. Report 49 was written during the war by US soldiers so the only bias would have been towards the Japanese.

Here are some other non-primary references: Soh, Chunghee Sarah (2008). The comfort women: sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. pp. 183–184. ISBN 0226767779. "The discovery of her savings account records at the Shimonoseki post office in 1992 revealed that it had a balance of 25,245 yen saved during her life as a comfort woman in Burma and Thailand from 1942 to 1945"

Ishikida, Miki Y. (2005). Toward Peace: War Responsibility, Postwar Compensation, and Peace Movements and Education in Japan. iUniverse. p. 63. ISBN 0595350631. "One Korean former comfort woman, Mun Ok-chu, working in Burma, saved 26145 yen for two years and seven months, 843 yen a month, and sent 5000 yen back to her parents, though she was not able to withdraw money when military currency lost its value in 1945."

Driscoll, Mark (2010). Absolute erotic, absolute grotesque: the living, dead, and undead in Japan's imperialism, 1895-1945. Duke University Press. p. 309. ISBN 082234761X. "Even though these establishments were expensive to operate and prices were high— one short session with a forced sex worker normally cost between 1.5 and 2 yen ( when the monthly salary of a Japanese soldier was between 6 and 10 yen)—many profited handsomely."

About "Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No.49" Soh, Chunghee Sarah (2008). The comfort women: sexual violence and postcolonial memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. p. 34. ISBN 0226767779.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.122.179.225 (talk) 22:45, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

もしこのコメントをされた方が日本人なら、私のTalkのページにご連絡ください。

They says "there was a slave salary is higher than the prime minister" with a serious face. There is no make sense to present the evidence that they got highly salary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wingwrong (talk • contribs) 17:40, June 27, 2012 (UTC)

The normal definition of a slave in most cases is that they do NOT receive ANY money. Even if these women received a little money they could not be called slaves. Report No.49 says that the women are prostitutes. The amount of money they earned means that they were richly paid prostitutes. Of course they may feel like they were slaves after the war had finished because like the German wartime economy, the Japanese wartime economy colapsed with loss of the war. The wartime Yen like the Reichsmark because valueless, meaning that the vast savings these women had accumulated were worthless - just the same as anyone with money in a Japanese bank account.

There is the "Parent sell a child" from hundreds of years ago. There is the notice of the Japanese army that contents of "Be careful because brokers deceive". In addition, there is no "objective & phisical evidence" that content of "Japanese army's general headquarter ordered to abduction". This is similar to the "Ghost".

However, the hypocrite is joy in favor of the people that call weak themselves. "Truth and reality does not matter !" "I love myself that help the weak !"

America isn't suspected "We are goodness". Therefore, they were fooled easily by such lies. I hate such the hypocrite.Wingwrong (talk) 09:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Reacting to the comment immediately above, I see that this note has a cites the Yoshimi book. The article sometimes says something like "according to historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi" when that book is cited. Perhaps a similar caveat should be made in all places where it is cited. Also, it seems to me that the article should explain the reason for the presence of any such caveat. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:57, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Yoshimi said only "There are sex slaves in China, Vietnam and Indonesia". He NEVER prove the testimony "There are sex slaves in Korea". Japanese are saying just this.Wingwrong (talk) 09:24, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

The assertion supported by the Yoshimi cite you are questioning is "The military turned to acquiring comfort women outside mainland Japan, especially from Korea and occupied China. Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels." I don't see how "There are sex slaves in Korea" relates to that.

I've never seen the Yoshimi book, so can't comment on its content. I did look at this Japan Times article (cited elsewhere in the article, but not cited in note 19), and see that it makes the following points re Yoshimi, the term "sex slave", and comfort women from Korea:

• Yoshimi explicitly refers to them as sex slaves. He says the military forced them into sexual slavery, imprisoning them in brothels.
• Yoshimi says the sex slaves were that by definition -- they did not have freedom to leave or refuse sex with soldiers.
• They came from Japanese-occupied Korea, Taiwan, French Indochina (now Vietnam), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Burma (Myanmar) and even Japan, according to Yoshimi. He believes the majority were Korean, followed by Chinese, Taiwanese and Filipinos. But there were also Vietnamese and Dutch women, and he said roughly 10 percent were Japanese.

On the question of whether a source has proven the truthfulness of its assertions to the satisfaction of individual wikipedia editors, see the essay Wikipedia:Truth. If it's a situation where separate reliable sources assert significantly different viewpoints, see WP:DUE. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:55, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

All right. I was a little misunderstanding. In other words, you want to write is "a Yoshimi's imagination story", aren't you? All right. Then I can understand.

Yoshimi never presented the objective evidence that Japanese army ordered the abduction and slave but he has released the book written by his imagination. If there is the objective evidence that of , then please teach me. if there is no objective evidence, there is no difference between fantasy story and it. Will of course?Wingwrong (talk) 07:27, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

No-one is seriously claiming that report No.49 is wrong. It was written by the USA army whilst they were still at war with the Japanese so the only bias would be against the Japanese not for them. Therefore we know Yoshima is wrong or that at least he was not aware of the whole picture. There is also the Australian wartime report "Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS), Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, Amenities in the Japanese Armed Forces, using information available to 31 March 1945". mentioned in the section Comfort women as voluntary prostitutes above which confirms Report No.49.

Collapse the troll by Yaush

I'm having a problem with this entire discussion. Is a Wikipedia talk page really the place to debate revisionist claims about the comfort women? --Yaush (talk) 13:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC) Japanese believe that virtue is a "no excuse". However, Koreans took advantage to it, they begin to "lie and blackmail". They would have considered to get money. There is a Korean proverb "If you put a lie 100 times, it becomes a fact". Their trying to lie 100 times, Japanese said "Prove and out the evidence". Rather I surprised. There is no "objective evidence" and "phisical evidence". Even though, some people are convinced as if it is a fact. This is an act of racial discrimination against the Japanese by Koreans. There is no evidence of "Japanese military take the lead to abduct the sexual slavery". For the Japanese, you are the racist. Wikipedia talk page is not the place to debate "racist" claims about the comfort women. You need the "neutral".Wingwrong (talk) 17:45, 7 July 2012 (UTC) See WP:NOTFORUM. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:57, 7 July 2012 (UTC) I know it. However, we did not refute when they tried to lie. Then, Americans thought "Japan is recognized". Many of the Japanese is not good at English. No way, we never would have thought it that American believing the "no evidence fiction story". So, I refute at trifles. You never tell "sex slave" as if it were a fait accompli. It is a racism. We never forgive. We learned that Americans do further racial discrimination if we don't say anything. In fact, you did not say anything against the racist who said "revisionist".Wingwrong (talk) 02:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC) Wingwrong, this is not the place for you to try to change American's ideas, or to promote your opinion about the topic of Comfort Women. There are thousands of sites you can do that on, but not this one. This page can be used to improve the article, and that's it. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC) That is, Do you mean that "Wikipedia is the place where describe the racist words" ? His words is racism. If it were, you should take care of him at first. I seems you thinking that "Wingwrong wrote a difference from the views of the United States". But, February 21, 2006, The United States Supreme Court about the comfort women issue, and ruled that "Japan and Korea has been agreed and resolved in the San Francisco Peace Treaty". Rather, I was surprised that Wikipedia has not been written the record of the Supreme Court in February 21, 2006. "Neutral"? "Troll"? you guys don't say. U.S. view is "resolved". Is your view difference from The United States Supreme Court ? Who is a troll?Wingwrong (talk) 09:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Evidence

No.1 Delete the description "After its defeat, the Japanese military destroyed many documents for fear of war crimes prosecution.[51]". There is no evidence that the "Japanese military destroyed many documents". The Japanese can not prove it because it's "probatio diabolica". Prepare the evidence anyone. And "Note 51" is invalid. However, Yoshiaki Yoshimi reported "Japanese military was involved", but there was "Japanese military were punished the abducted brokers" in his report. (軍慰安所従業婦等募集に関する件) He did falsification. It's too dangerous to believe that evidence of his writings. That is, He never proved that the Japanese army direct order the abduction. There is no such evidence anywhere. At least until new evidence comes out, the description is inappropriate.

No.2 "Shinzo- Abe, the prime minister at the time, stated that there is no evidence that the Japanese government instituted a brutal sex slave industry." Can the video become an evidence ? "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k99AIqSL0VU" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wingwrong (talk • contribs) 06:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

No. 1: There is a valid reference there. Are you claiming that the reference does not state that the J. military destroyed documents? In other words, you need to stop trying to argue against the sources--if the source says something, and the source meets WP:RS, then you can't just say "the source is wrong". You're saying Yoshimi falisified information. Okay, what is your reliable source to prove that? In other words, we will not rely on your word that the source is "falsified" or "wrong"--we need a reliable source stating it is.

No. 2: No, the video doesn't work. We could cite the speech directly, but luckily there is a Time magazine citation in English that we can cite instead. I'll add some information from that article providing more context, and add the cite. Qwyrxian (talk) 09:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

No.1: There is in "http://www.jacar.go.jp/". You need to access the site and input "C04120263400" in center TextBox and click a red search(検索) button. He was deprecating Japan using the document , but the document written the opposite things that he said. Can you satisfaction in this ?

No.2: The translation of "Time magazine" was wrong. I don't know what you can understand Japanese, but He don't speak the written of "Time magazine". Or, you try to say "We believe the magazine's written because I cannot understand Japanese." ? Many American that cannot understand Japanese believe only the Korean's testimony and punish Japanese. They never read the evidence by Japanese written. It is too frustrating.　After all, they believe only what they believe in themself. Because , it's makes money. I think that I should tell the truth in English for the honor of Japan. Wingwrong (talk) 16:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The Koreans have a legitimate claim for damages and can be trusted more than Japanese nationalists who are protecting their country's honor. The Japanese nationalists cannot be allowed in this Wikipedia article to erase the issue. Binksternet (talk) 17:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

That issue was already finally and fully solved in the Japan-Korea Treaty. There is no legitimate claim. The Japanese patriots who are protecting their country's honor can be trusted more than the Koreans that trying to extortion even though he has neither evidence nor legal basis.

70 years After WWII, anyone was impossible to predict the adverse effect that the Japanese was exposed to radiation. Many Japanese are still suffering. However, despite the apparent violation of the laws of war, Japan is not seeking compensation in the United States. Because there is the treaty.

If American accept the claim, Americans need to be prepared to ensure the Japanese atomic bomb victims. Double standard is not allowed.Wingwrong (talk) 02:57, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

How the practice became known about after the war / History of the controversy?

This article has undergone major revisions since the last time I checked - it's missing the entire 'history of the controversy section' which relates how the issue came to prominence again. Why had it been entirely cut? In addition, the use by American GIs of 'comfort women' in Occupied Japan has been ignored. Suggestions for an addition below, posting here for advice as article very controversial.

History of the controversy

During the Park regime (1963–1972), the subject of comfort women was little talked about in Korea. The issue came to light only after people involved in the Korean Women's Movement began to assist the "camptown" prostitutes that American servicemen were using. Young women activists discovered a connection between the Japanese, US and Korean governments, and publicized the issue.

Refernce: "^ Moon, Katharine H.S. (March - April 1999), "South Korean Movements against Militarized Sexual Labor", The Journal of Asian Studies 39 (2): 473–500, "The chongsindae movement, however, is not the first women's movement in South Korea to protest and redress sexual exploitation and abuse of Korean women by foreign men. In the 1970s, Korean women activists, some of whom are now fighting for the chongsindae survivors, protested vehemently against Japanese government's and Japanese society's participation in kisaeng tourism in Korea. Also, since the mid-1980s, a group of Korean women and men have sought to recognize and publicize the plight of U.S. military camptown (kijich'on) prostitutes as victims of debt bondage and objects of foreign domination. Moreover, the chongsindae movement and the kijich'on movement originally began together as part of a larger Asian women's human rights movement against the sexual exploitation of women ... Camptown women were kidnapped by common criminals and other forms of coercive procurements such as fraudulent promises by traffickers for well-paying jobs and skills-training. And in both the chongsindae and kijich'on systems, rape was often used as a way to "initiate" women into sexual labor ... They are beholden to their clubowner/manager/pimp through what human rights activists call the debt bondage system ... it is imperative to understand that the kijich'on system is highly regulated and sustained by the official policies and practises of the US Government and Korean government."

The issue also took a long time to become a cause celebre in the United States. One reason may have been embarrassment in Washington about the fact that many of the comfort women were brought back to Japan after the war and served members of the U.S. occupation. The issue was well understood by Americans at the time. In what may have been the first mention of the women in English, Frank Kelley and Cornelius Ryan referred to "comfort girls" in Star-spangled Mikado, a book published in 1947. Kelly and Ryan suggest that many of the comfort women were infected with venereal disease and this helped explain extraordinarily high rates of diseased among the GIs.

Reference: http://www.archive.org/stream/starspangledmika00kellrich/starspangledmika00kellrich_djvu.txt — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rogerferris (talk • contribs) 12:34, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Um, see the archive.org link-Star-spangled Mikado was first published in 1911. So whatever it's talking about, it's not talking about Comfort Women. I haven't looked at the rest though, it may have promise. Other opinions? Qwyrxian (talk) 15:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

No, it was published in 1946, please read it. The archive link is simply for convenience for people who do not have access to a hard copy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.31.246 (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Several online references, including the one I gave, clearly show that the 1946 version is a re-print of an earlier work. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:35, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I have not read carefully on this page recently, but who could write about the occupied Japan in 1911? Qwyrxian, the link you provided says the subject of the book is Japan -- History Allied occupation, 1945-1952. See [8] and [9] too. It seems to me that "1911" is the birth year of Kelley. Oda Mari (talk) 05:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The copyright page says 1947; see here. A quick look at the first few sentences of chapter one of the book makes it obvious that the book was written sometime after WW-II. See here. The book is available for download in PDF form here. (I haven't downloaded it because my current internet connection is much too slow for that) Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I got a faster internet connection and downloaded the book. The mention of "comfort girls" is on page 152, in the following snippet:

... When Cardinal Spellman visited the naval area of Yokosuka, late in the fall of 1945, the red-light districts were promptly put out of bounds to all ranks. However, the following day, the houses were re-opened, and business started again as usual.

The returning Japanese soldiers were found to be riddled with venereal disease, and it is believed they were the principal cause of the increased rate of syphilis in the "houses." The "comfort girls," who had journeyed with the troops, went back to their former houses, and they were found to be 90 per cent infected. Although these facts were known, they were not told to the G.I. or sailor. No great effort was made by local commanders to discourage promiscuity, ...

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill)

Organized prostitution was either legal or ignored up until some Expo (1970s but it might have been later) in Japan proper. Then it was permanently eradicated (enforced). It was about the last industrialized country to do this, perhaps because of "cultural norms." Student7 (talk) 18:30, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Please provide the sources. Thank you. Oda Mari (talk) 19:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmm.. I don't have time to delve into this right now, but there is some info at Prostitution in Japan#Prostitution today and in this news article cited there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I think Oda Mari's requested citations are the sentence "It was about the last industrialized country to do this, perhaps because of "cultural norms."" not about Japanese regurations. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 10:15, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't want an ignorant editor to comment like "cultural norms". There are many industrialized countries where the prostitution is still legal. See Red-light district, Prostitution in Germany, Prostitution in Nevada, Prostitution in the Netherlands, Prostitution in Austria, Prostitution in Europe (Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Hungary and Latvia), Prostitution in Australia, and Prostitution in New Zealand. ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 09:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

And, closer to the point, Prostitution in Japan. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:57, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I failed to add a sentence "There are many industrialized countries where the prostitution is still legal." ―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 08:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about my earlier points...I have no idea what I was looking at. I'll trust others were correct and I just made a mistake. Qwyrxian (talk) 03:04, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Protected Page Edit Request

Very minor edit, but I noticed this under the sub-header "Treatment of Comfort Women."

The sentence reads "The court decision found that the charges those who raped violated were the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women."

Is it supposed to say "the rapists violated the Army's order"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.48.32.239 (talk • contribs)

Hmmm..it's definitely incorrect as written, but I can't figure out for sure what it's supposed to say. I wonder if the word "raped" even belongs in that sentence. Unfortunately, the source is in Japanese, so I can't check it. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:13, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm...

• That source citation appeared in this March 2007 edit, supporting an assertion which did not include the text being discussed here.
• In subsequent edits, the assertion supported by this source changed. this June 2008 edit changed "..., one being sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court having been decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army." to read, "... with one sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court. It decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army and that the ones who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women.", introducing text similar to that being discussed here.
• This January 2010 edit changed that text to read, "It was decided that the crime was not organized by the Army and that those who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women."
• This April 2011 edit changed that to read, "The court decision found that the charges those who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women."
• This August 2011 edit changed that to read, "The court decision found that the charges those who raped violated were the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women." -- the text currently in the article.

Some of this shows up in sources outside of Wikipedia over this time period. For example, this source dated March 15, 2009, says,

Although they were returned to the prison camps within three months upon protest of the Dutch prisoners against the Imperial Army, the Japanese officers were not punished by Japanese authorities until the end of the war. After the end of the World War II, 11 Japanese officers were declared guilty with one sentenced to death by the Batavia War Criminal Court. It decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army and that the ones who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women. Some victims from East Timor testified they were forced when they were not old enough to have started menstruating and repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers. Some of those who refused to comply were executed.

It is not clear to me, though, whether such outside content is moving to or from this Wikipedia article.

I see that a Google Books search for "It decided that the case was not crime organized by the Army and that the ones who raped violated the Army’s order to hire only voluntary women" hits on this book published in 2000. The book is not previewable online, though, and I don't know whether the hit is an exact or a partial match. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Request to delete non-English notes or to add proper English translations

All of you can read Korean language and Japanese language? I can't. Notes.[14][47] are written in only Korean and Noes. [25][38][44] in only Japanese. What is the sense of appending the notes that most English readers can't read? The non-English notes (with no translation) should be removed or added proper English translations.Mzch (talk) 12:34, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:NONENG. While we are supposed to provide translations for any quotes (which looks like it might apply to 14), we do not need to provide translations of the titles or of the documents themselves. Those are the proper titles of the original documents, their publishers, etc. However, if someone would like to add translations of the titles (etc.), that would be alright. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:48, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Definitely need translation in the caption of the supposed recruiting posters for Comfort Women, for credibility, if nothing else. Student7 (talk) 22:59, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I see, well, I give it the caption at first.Wingwrong (talk) 03:29, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Rubi Abiru's blog is Sankei Newspaper's official blog

I tell about the section of the "evidence". That Rubi Abiru's blog is Sankei Newspaper's official blog. And that article wrote by Rubi Abiru of Sankei Newspaper's exclusive press of prime minister. Therefore he applies the terms of the "WP:RS".Wingwrong (talk) 03:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

阿比留瑠比

国を憂い、われとわが身を甘やかすの記

All Korean has Japanese citizenship

When in WWII , all Korean has Japanese citizenship. Therefore, the word of the "Japanese military" include Japanese and Korean soldier. It's obvious. If you say "It's lie", I can see you the evidence, but you need it?

Next, do anyone want to say "Koreans have not sexual desire at all"? If it true, "Raitaihan problem" should not happen. If it is true, South Korea isn't occurring sex crime 7-10 times more than in Japan in population ratio. Do not you say "Show me the evidence Koreans were using the comfort station". if anyone say it, I want to show me the evidence only Japanese were using the comfort station. Japanese army had been using it, but there is a probability the "Japanese army don't include Japanese". If you say "It's lie", you need show me the evidence. I think "Japanese army include not only Japanese but also Korean".

It's equal that Korean-Americans who belonging to the U.S. military condemn the massacre of civilians by U.S. military in Iraq. It's equal they say "It is just bad American-American. Korean-American is not bad at all". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wingwrong (talk • contribs) 03:43, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Just as always, the responsibility is on you to provide reliable sources to verify your claims. You cannot require others to provide a reliable source to prove that something is not true. In any event, the article does say that Koreans used the comfort stations, since that is verified by the source. The extra stuff you tried to add is not in the source. Thus, you'll need to provide another source, it cannot be included. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Youtube Video What will the evidence that Ahn Byung-jik said?

TIME > 14:43 "The point at issue is, needless to say,. Comfort Women existed. Nobody denies it. The problem is whether comfort women were mobilized forcibly or not. Some former comfort women testified that there had been forced mobilization. However, no objective evidence has ever been found in both Korea and Japan. This is the problem."

"It's an objective historical fact that comfort women had spontancity , more ore less.For example , there were traders, who were doing business by recruiting comfort women. Over half of the agencies were koreans. What kind of power did those Koreans have to mobilize comfort women forcibly ?"

Wingwrong (talk) 16:12, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not the question at all. You were adding a line talking about whether or not Koreans had apologized. That's what you need a source for. If your entire purpose in editing here is to make the article show whether or not comfort women were coerced, and you'll only accept one answer to that, you need to stop editing it right away, because you're violating WP:NPOV. Edit neutrally. When sources disagrees, we provide both sides. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:33, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

This is well understandable video that claims of Japan against the comfort women.

Inherently, I think should not be write here this thing. But I want to see the Youtube video all American.

I have a limit of expression. I Can not say I want to say anything.

Please watch this video, and please anyone help me.

<REDACTED> Japanese never admit the Wikipedia that write the such unbalance information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wingwrong (talk • contribs) 17:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

No thanks. This page is only for discussing improvement of the article, not for preaching to Americans. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:34, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

"性奴隷" in "Alternate Korean name"

"性奴隷" is mean "Sex Slave", it's not mean "Comfort women".

As for the item called "Alternate Korean name" that written in the upper right corner, we have to discuss "Comfort women, whether or not they were sex slaves". However, if there is a word, it looks like a fait accompli. Even if it's fact that the so called in Korea, it's not neutral. In Japan, some famous critics or famous nonfiction writers and a lot of public called "liar prostitute" the comfort women, but I don't think well that to write it in "Alternate Japanese name".

There may have been runaway of soldiers and accidental bombing. However, just because, Japanese never called "American is incarnation of evil " if there is no objective evidence that it is done intentionally to instruction that forces the mistaken bombing, Japanese believe the U.S.Army. It would be common sense?Wingwrong (talk) 08:04, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm..that's a tricky issue. Is that the word that is always used in Korean for this topic? If so, that's our standard for judging...though perhaps we could make a good argument that all of the names should go. Wikipedia isn't a dictionary. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:37, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

At least, the item of 'Alternate Korean name' is not necessary in this article. There is no evidence at all was a slave. Nevertheless, only to write a biased opinion is not neutral.Wingwrong (talk) 06:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I've removed that name, until such time as someone presents evidence that it's used regularly enough to be legitimately called an "alternate name". Qwyrxian (talk) 21:23, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Lead sentence -- to The or not to The, and the term vs. the group

Recent edits have cycled between two versions of the lead sentence:

The term "comfort women" was a euphemism used to describe women ...

vs.

The "comfort women" are girls and women who were ...

The article currently uses the second version. I've boldly edited that to read

Comfort women are girls and women who were ...

which seems better to me. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:21, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Your solution works. The problem with the first version was that the article does not discuss the lexicography of the term. Binksternet (talk) 00:42, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, both. Too many Wikipedia articles start off saying X is a term for Y - when they should say X is Y (with a short discussion of terminology in a later section if at all). --Uncle Ed (talk) 12:46, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

What is the definition of "girl"? In the Joseon Dynasty, it's not uncommon that Korean women get married at the age of 12. Someone had become a "Apprenticeship Kisaeng" at the age of 8. (Japan has banned it when Japan annexed Korea.) In the Joseon Dynasty, licensed prostitution was managed by the "Kisaeng agency". And, in Korea there were state-regulated prostitution until 2004.

Based on this, what is the definition of "girl"? I don't understand that need to separate the "girls" and "women" dare. Rather, I feel racism malicious. You guys re-referred to as the "girl" forcibly, and tries to emphasize the brutality.

Do you know that married Korean women wore a dress that reveals a nipple? [10] It is not to be ashamed. It is a culture. You don't speak in modern values​​.Wingwrong (talk) 03:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

U.S. State Department spokesman Nuland

On August 16, 2012, U.S. State Department spokesman Nuland expressed in conjunction with the "sex slaves" and "comfort women". Is it realy? Then, Japanese can also denounced the United States because to instituted the RAA. "It's not an issue whether the government was forced." "It was effectively forced on, therefore American decided to be referred to as "sex slaves"." You said it.

Then U.S. troops have caused the 30,000 rape case in Japan, for this reason, It can say "Japan has been made to force the facility for the U.S. military prostitution". And, it can be said to have been involved in the United States were allowed to instituted the RAA.

How do you ignore the acts of your own again? How do you condemn the only Japan again? No way, will you do no such thing !? Then, we need to change this item's name to "Sex slaves" and write American sex crimes. Do you mind writting? Can I start adding this things?

If you say "Victim has not come forward", we can simple to prepare a "self-proclaimed victim". We need not a phisical evidence, and we collect only 4 testimony of people. Wingwrong★ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ 06:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC)