Comfort Women
We were under the control of the Japanese military. All our belongings were taken away and we were striving to survive every minute. We had to find ways to feed our younger siblings for their well-being while we kept our bodies and souls together with the least amount of food. When we saw the advertisement about the opportunity to work in factories and restaurants, even with chances for higher education, we had no more time to think about it.
Goodbye mom,
Goodbye dad,
Goodbye siblings,
We will do anything to give you all better lives.
We headed to catch the military train in our white, white dresses to look good for our new jobs. The military polices were guarding the entrance. They occasionally smirked at us. We nodded at them so they don’t think we’re ignoring them. When we got on the train, it was black, so black that we could not see each other’s face. We could not tell where we were going either. It just continued rumbling, rumbling, rumbling… all we could hear was the train wheels running on the rails.
Just like our lives were running on the rail of the sorrow.
During World War II, approximately 400,000 women were abducted, lured, and forced to work for the Japanese military. Most women were from countries occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army, including Korea, China, and the Philippines. They were mostly teenagers, as young as 13-year-old. A lot of them were kidnapped from their hometown right in front of their families’ eyes, and a lot of others were told that they will be working in factories and restaurants for the Japanese army. Eventually, all of them were forced into working as “Comfort Women”, the refined title for sexual slavery.
Between 1932 and 1945, military correspondence of the Imperial Japanese Army started facilitating so-called “comfort stations” in their occupied countries. Its purpose was to prevent the rape crimes and hostile acts committed by Japanese army personnel driven by their sexual desires during the years of World War II. In those comfort stations, girls and women were forced to have sex with Japanese army personnel every day – ranging from 10 to 30 men a day – to “comfort” them emotionally sexually.
Now, what kind of culture in this world has to have stations full of girls ready for men whenever they have sexual desires unless the whole nation is total remorseless, barbaric savage? On top of that, forcing somebody into sexual slavery is above the moral sense which is totally unacceptable. Not only they were used as sexual objects every day and night, but they were also beaten and tortured whenever they resisted getting involved. Many of those who became pregnant were forced to have abortions. Many of those who became ill from gross environment and tortures were left to die. Many of those who were finally free after the war had to get their uterus removed, and continued to suffer from physical and emotional distress their whole life.