“Comfort Women” Denier
Talking Points DEBUNKED!
“Comfort women” is a historical term
referring to the women who performed
sexual labor in Japan’s military brothels(“comfort stations”) across Asia and thePacific during its imperial wars, 1932-1945.
Experiences of “comfort women” varied:some women, especially in the early years,
were recruited from existing brothels inJapan as a way to pay off their debts more
quickly; others, mainly from Japan’s colonies(Korea and Taiwan) and occupied territories,
were deceived with the promise of lucrative
career, or were outright kidnapped andforced into the system.
Below are some of the most commonly
encountered Japanese “comfort women”
denier talking points, and the facts
according to actual historians.
TALKING POINT: “The 1944 U.S. military
report says that ‘comfort women’ are justprostitutes!”
FACT: They are taking a sentence out ofcontext. The same document clearly statesthat most women were deceived with thepromise of a good job and forced to performsexual acts on Japanese soldiers under debt
bondage. That describes victims of humantrafficking, not women voluntarily engagingin prostitution.
TALKING POINT: “The 1944 U.S. military
report also says that ‘comfort women’received exceedingly high salaries!”
FACT: According to the same document,
many women suffered in poverty because
their nominally high earnings were taken
away by the Japanese “house masters”
repay debt and purchase necessities, which
the women had to procure from them.
TALKING POINT: “Korean newspapers
published ads recruiting ‘comfort women,’which proves that they were voluntary!”
FACT: Most Korean women who became“comfort women” were not literate, so theads were not designed to entice them.
The ads (and only two such ads have beendiscovered) were placed by contractors toentice private recruiters and subcontractors
to go out and recruit the women.

TALKING POINT: “News reports fromthe era show that Japanese governmentarrested and prosecuted contractors thatkidnapped and trafficked Korean women!”
FACT: Japanese government prosecuted
kidnappers and traffickers in general,but those were not contractors that are
kidnapping and trafficking women on
behalf of the Japanese military (except forrecruitment in Japan–see the next point).
TALKING POINT: “Japanese government
issued a directive ordering the military tocarefully select contractors to avoid thosethat engage in kidnapping and trafficking!”
FACT: The 1938 directive was issued in
response to an incident in which local police
in Japan detained a contractor recruiting
women as “comfort women” for theJapanese military. The local police did not
realize that Japanese military was directly
involved in establishing and operating
brothels, and assumed that the contractor
was falsely claiming to be working for themilitary. This incident led to the directive
urging greater coordination between militarycontractors and local police departments andrequiring the contractors to conceal theirties to the Japanese military publicly so as
to not embarrass the military. The directive
only applies to recruitment in Japan, andand there are no comparable directives
addressing deceptive or illegal recruitment
in Korea or Taiwan.

to pay off their debt, is also considered aform of slavery under current as well as
historical standards.
TALKING POINT: “The ‘comfort women’story was invented by Asahi Shimbun
newspaper, which recently retracted thefabricated testimonies of professed ‘comfort
women’ recruiter Seiji Yoshida!”
FACT: Yoshida’s testimonies have been
refuted and rejected by virtually all
historians in the 1990s, and is not thebasis for Japanese government’s Kono
Statement (1993), the United Nations’
report on “comfort women” by the special
rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy (1996),
or the U.S. House Resolution 121 (2007).
Asahi’s retraction makes no difference to ourcurrent conversations on the topic.
TALKING POINT: “Former Asahi reporter
Takashi Uemura, who wrote articles about
former comfort women’s lawsuit against
Japan, was biased because his mother-inlaw was a leader of the Korean group thatwas suing the Japanese government onbehalf of the women!”

operation of the “comfort women” system.
TALKING POINT: “Some Korean scholars
such as Ahn Byong Jik and Park Yuha
question the allegation that Korean women
were forcibly taken by the Japanesemilitary!”
FACT: There are some disagreements
in terms of how much blame should be
assigned to different parties, including theJapanese military, Korean brokers who did
the actual recruitment, etc., but neither Ahn
or Park deny that Japan bears responsibility
for the trafficking and exploitation of women
under the “comfort women” system even
if the military did not directly kidnap theKorean women.
TALKING POINT: “Anthropologist C. Sarah
Soh has documented that former ‘comfort
women’ have changed their testimonies, sothey are unreliable!”

FACT: Testimonies of survivors of severe
trauma often shift and change, and it should
not be considered a reason to dismiss theirtestimonies altogether. Historians do not
rely on any single document or testimony
FACT: The organization Uemura’s motherfor their understanding of historicalin-law was involved in had nothing to doevents; rather, they look at many different
with the lawsuit at the time. Uemura also
documents and testimonies to corroborate
never quoted Yoshida, or wrote articles that what actually took place. Regardless ofalleged direct “taking” of Korean women by
the accuracy of any particular claim or any
the Japanese military. A third-party review
particular testimony, it is undeniable thatof Uemura’s reporting found no wrongdoing
tens or hundreds of thousands of womenon his part.
were forced into sexual servitude by theJapanese military. In fact, Soh argues thatTALKING POINT: “Interagency Working“the fact that some individual survivors
Group of the United States spent 30 million
and their advocates have given accounts
dollars and seven years to search forthat are exaggerated or only partially true,
evidences supporting the testimonies ofhowever, does not warrant the assertion by‘comfort women,’ but could not find anything conservative leaders in Japan that Japan isTALKING POINT: “If any kidnapping orincriminating Japanese military!”
being ‘condemned based on propagandistic
trafficking happened, it was done by private
accounts of things that simply did notbusinesses operating brothels, and not by
FACT: IWG IWG was tasked with reviewinghappen.’”the Japanese military! Or they were simply
WWII-era U.S. documents to find records
sold by their parents to pay off debts!”
of German and Japanese war crimes anddeclassifying them. Most inquiries were
FACT: Japanese military built or requested
related to the Nazi Germany, because many
contractors to build “comfort stations,”
documents about Japan were not classified.
Japan-U.S. Feminist Network for Decolonization
provided special documents to enable
The search did not result in the discovery
脱植民地化を目指す日米フェミニストネットワーク
women to travel across borders, transported of any new evidences documenting Japan’s
Information provided by Japan-U.S. Feminist
women on military vehicles, established
war crimes related to “comfort women.”
Network for Decolonization (FeND):
fees, policies, and schedules for the “comfort Prior to IWG’s review, however, there werestations,” etc.—all of which are considered
many publicly available U.S. government
human trafficking under current as welldocuments, including the 1944 U.S. military http://www.fendnow.org/
http://facebook.com/fendnow
as historical standards, especially since
report mentioned earlier, that show Japan’s
info@fendnow.org
many of the women were underage. Debt
wartime violations of human rights and@fendnoworg
bondage, or forcing women to work in order international law in its management andFeND