The Comfort Women – Japanese colonial

rule in Korea 1910-1945

Human Rights & Diversity

Kilian Harkema
M. Hirschberg
Bremen City University of Applied Sciences
12 July 2018
kilian.harkema@student.stenden.com
Introduction
The Japanese colonial empire expanded rapidly from 1895 on in the Western Pacific and East
Asia region. Being an isolated country and seeking for more connectivity to foreign
countries, Japan annexed the current region of Korea in 1910. Korea was officially part of the
Empire of Japan for 35 years, from August 22, 1910 to September 2, 1945. Next to that,
Imperial Japan colonized Taiwan, parts of China, Russia and the former German colonial
empire in the Pacific Ocean. In South Korea, this period is usually described as a time of
Japanese ‘forced occupation’.
During the occupation of these colonies by the Japanese imperial army, there were military
brothels established. There was a system of ‘comfort women’, where women were recruited
for ‘comfort stations’ in order to satisfy the men of the army. Claims are made that these
women were forcefully put into these comfort stations or were recruited through fraudulent
and misleading means. Many questions concerning the issue have arisen on this topic during
post-war times, and the issue is widely seen as still unresolved. Therefore, this research paper
will focus on the following research question:
‘’Who were the comfort women during the Japanese colonial rule in Korea during
1910-1945 and in what way were human rights violated?''
This, alongside with the sub question:
‘’Which acknowledgements and attempts of resolution have arisen concerning the comfort
women since the ending of the Japanese colonial era?’’

Background information
As specified before, during the Japanese colonial rule there existed a system of ‘comfort
women’ where women were used for military ‘comfort stations’. The term ‘comfort women’
refers to the direct translation of the Japanese word ‘ianfu’, which is a euphemism for
‘prostitutes’. Most of the women were from the occupied territories of Korea, China and the
Philippines. There were women from these countries who were tricked or defrauded into
joining military brothels. The underlying motive of establishing these comfort stations was to
prevent rape crimes by the Japanese army personnel and thus preventing the rise of hostility
among people in occupied areas (Asian Women’s Fund , 2007).
At first instance, the system consisted out of Japanese prostitutes who volunteered for these
services. However, along with the expansion of the Japanese empire, the military found itself
short on Japanese volunteers, and therefore women were recruited from the local populations
of the occupied countries. The first comfort station was established in Shanghai in 1932, and
the number of comfort stations increased rapidly after the Sino-Japanese war broke out in
1937. Women were recruited through conventional means at first, such as through
advertising, but were increasingly recruited by trickery and fraudulent means to work in
military brothels. In many cases, women were lured with promises of work or higher
education, but once recruited, they were incarcerated in comfort stations both inside their
countries and abroad. Next to that, thousands of Korean, Chinese and Philippine women were
kidnapped and held as sex slaves (Asian Women’s Fund , 2007). Beatings and torture were
not uncommon. Approximately 75% of comfort women died, and most survivors were left
infertile due to sexual trauma or sexually transmitted diseases (De Brouwer, 2005)
There exist no absolute numbers on the number of comfort women during this period of time.
At the end of WW2, the Japanese government had ordered to destroy material related to war
crimes, and therefore there’s a lack of official documentation on the issue. Historian Yoshiaki

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Yoshimi, who conducted the first academic research on the topic, estimated the number of
victims between 50.000 and 200.000 from Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Taiwanese,
Burmese, Indonesian, Dutch and Australian origin, in as many as 2.000 centers (Yoshimi,
2000). This particular system of ‘comfort stations’ ended when Imperial Japan surrendered
on August 15, 1945.
In the following decades, many former comfort women were afraid to reveal their past,
because they are afraid of being disowned or ostracized further (Pilzer, 2012). However, there
have arisen several political movements in order to demand justice for the damage done by
Imperial Japan. In Korea, every Wednesday the living comfort women, women’s
organizations, socio-civic groups and a number of individuals participate in the Wednesday
demonstrations in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, which are sponsored by the
‘Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan’. This form of
demonstration was first held in 1992, when Japanese prime minister Miyazawa visited South
Korea. Furthermore, there’s a statue of a young woman in front of the Japanese embassy in
Seoul, which was being placed to honour the comfort women on the 1000th Wednesday
demonstration. The Japanese government repeatedly asked the Korean government to remove
the statue, and it was agreed in a 2015 official resolution, but this has not been done yet
(Griffith, 2017).
The issue of the comfort women has caused friction between the two countries for decades.
There was an agreement signed in 2015 between the Japanese and Korean government in
order to settle the issue, but this was heavily opposed by the victim’s groups. Nowadays, the
issue still remains highly controversial. In the deal in 2015, the Japanese prime minister
Shinzo Abe offered ‘his most sincere apologies and remorse to all former comfort women’,
and the Japanese government provided 1 billion yen (around 9 million USD) to a fund for
helping the victims. Here, the two countries agreed to ‘refrain from criticizing and blaming
each other in the international society, including the United Nations’. However, victim’s
groups feel the apology doesn’t go far enough, especially not to the extent that the
government claims responsibility for the tens of thousands of women that were forced to be
part of the comfort women program (Griffith, 2017). Argued is also that Japanese history
books underplay the historic events concerning the war crimes. There’s also internal
discussion in Japan about the issue, where the Imperial Household (crown prince Naruhito
and his father, emperor Akihito) strongly supports the correct passing-on of war history, and
prime minister Shinzo Abe is criticised for supporting the censorship of the evidence of
Japanese aggression and war crimes (Kingston, 2015).
In 2015, the Taiwanese government urged Japan to face up to its military use of sexual
slavery during World War II, when reports were published that this aspect of history would
be deleted from high school textbooks in Japan. The Taiwanese government stands firmly
behind the victims and has been helping them to seek compensation from the Japanese
government. Quoted is Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Anna Kao: ‘’The comfort
women issue was a dark chapter of World War II. Historical facts must not be forgotten or
erased’’ (Chia-chen, 2015). In the Philippines, comfort women formed different groups,
similar to in Korea. These organisations ask for a formal apology from the Japanese
government, compensation, and the inclusion of the issue in the Japanese history textbooks,
as well as their own government to back these claims. However, the Philippine government
has remained relatively quiet on the topic, possibly afraid that the issue may strain economic
ties with Japan (Gonzales, 2013).

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Developments
Apologies
With considerable embarrassment, Cabinet Secretary Kato Koichi publicly acknowledged in
a press conference on January 11, 1992, that the Japanese military had been involved in
maintaining comfort stations. Two days later, after consultation with Prime Minister
Miyazawa, Secretary Kato issued an official cabinet memorandum (Yamazaki, 2006):
1. When we consider the suffering experienced by the so-called comfort women from
the Korean peninsula, it is heart-breaking.
2. Materials in the Defense Agency support the fact that military authorities were
involved in the comfort women stations
3. Various forms of participation cannot be denied
4. The Japanese government has expressed deep regret and apologies before concerning
the past acts of Japan that caused unbearable suffering for the people of the Korean
peninsula, but in this case, we want to again express our sincere apology and regret to
those who endured suffering beyond description. The Japanese government is
resolved that this should never happen again.
5. We have been conducting an investigation since the end of last year and will pursue
vigorously the facts of the situation.
During the 1992 visit of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa of Japan to Seoul, he expressed an
apology over the Japanese army’s role in forcing Korean women to have sex with Japanese
soldiers during WWII, at a state dinner. Miyazawa said ‘’We Japanese should first and
foremost recall the truth of that tragic period when Japanese actions inflicted suffering and
sorrow upon your people. We should never forget our feelings of remorse over this. As prime
minister of Japan, I would like to declare anew my remorse at these deeds and tender my
apology to the people of the Republic of Korea. ‘’ (New York Times News Service, 1992).
The apologies of Miyazawa were not well received. The arrival of Miyazawa in Korea had
little effect other than to create a massive outrage among Koreans. Crowds of angry Koreans
stormed the streets, and everywhere Miyazawa went, he was met with crowds of angry
demonstrators objecting to his visit and demanding further apology. The Korean papers were
headlined with ‘Compensation, not mere words’. The most significant rejection of the
apologies was that of the Korean Women’s council who had become the center of comfort
women advocacy and opposition to the Japanese government on the issue. In 1991, the
council had set up 6 demands in a public letter including acknowledgement of government
responsibility, full disclosure, compensation, a memorial, and inclusion of the facts in
educational material in addition to apology (Yamazaki, 2006).
Despite the apologies of Prime Minister Miyazawa in January 1992, and the several
investigations of the Japanese government in 1992 and 1993, the comfort women issue grew
in terms of momentum. The issue got large international attention and the Korean Women
Council had succeeded in getting the comfort women issue on the agenda of the United
Nations Sub commission for Human Rights in Geneva. In 1993, new Prime Minister
Hosokawa made apology-related statements on four occasions, and further
acknowledgements and condolences were made. Hosokawa built on forward to recognizing
that there must be a focus on education about the issue and facing the unpleasant facts of
history, when he said ‘we must teach the errors of our history as errors’.

3
The quality of the apologies has been questioned and were seen, especially in the early
manifestations, as apologies that are responding to immediate public outrage and demand.
The scandal of the comfort women wasn’t an issue that ‘suddenly’ came to light, fifty years
later after it happened. Where the issue seemed to be heading towards resolution in 1992-
1993, the continuing public pressure kept the issue alive (Yamazaki, 2006).
In 1995, the government also apologised for its war-time aggression and built on forward on
the statements that were already made (BBC News, 2013). Prime Minister Tomiichi
Murayama published a statement where he said: ‘’The problem of the so-called wartime
comfort women is one such scar, which, with the involvement of the Japanese military forces
of the time, seriously stained the honour and dignity of many women. This is entirely
inexcusable. I offer my profound apology to all those who, as wartime comfort women,
suffered emotional and physical wounds that can never be closed.’’ (Ministry of Foreign
Affairs Japan, 1995). Furthermore, on this occasion, the Asian Women’s Fund was
established, a fund set up by the government to distribute monetary compensation to comfort
women in South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, The Netherlands and Indonesia (Asian
Women’s Fund , 2007). The people of Japan donated approximately 5 million USD and a
total of 40 million USD was provided by the Government of Japan. Each survivor was sent a
signed apology from the Prime Minister, stating ‘'As Prime Minister of Japan, I thus extend
anew my most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable
and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as
comfort women.’’ (Haruki, 2008).
Six decades have passed since the end of the war and the collapse of the Japanese colonial
empire. However, responsibility for colonialism, war, and their accompanying atrocities,
continued to agitate Japan and East Asia. There was a wide belief that Japan refused to
apologize or face the truth of history and refused to compensate the victims. However, these
beliefs are mistaken, even though it took five decades before these steps were taken at all and
the adequacy of the steps have been debated and are still debated (Haruki, 2008).
What has changed as a result of the public attention the issue got was the public
consciousness of women’s rights and the change of standards of morality. The comfort
women nowadays have become a symbol for women’s rights in Asia. The leaders of the
activist movements have an agenda that goes beyond the immediate needs of the victims, as
the refusal to accept the Japanese offer of compensation and apology shows. In this case,
principle is deemed more important than practical benefits to victims. Therefore, the
accusation of wrongdoing has become more than an exercise in order to gain apology and
compensation but is rather a ‘cause celebre’ in the ongoing struggle against women
oppression. The issue of the comfort women continues throughout the 1990s and also today,
it hasn’t been resolved. Complete resolution doesn’t seem likely anytime soon, since it
provides a strong rally point for feminists and anti-Japanese nationalist movements
(Yamazaki, 2006).
Controversy
Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of the city of Osaka in Japan, has made a controversial statement
in 2013 on the WWII comfort women. He described the system as a ‘necessary system’. The
comfort women would give the Japanese soldiers a chance to rest, according to Hashimoto.
He acknowledged that there were women who had been acting against their will, but that
Japan wasn’t the only country to use the system. Hashimoto, however, did claim that he
backed the 1995 statement by Japan’s prime minister Murayama, and thinks the
responsibility for the war also lies with Japan. The statement has caused much criticism from
both inside and outside Japan. Japan’s Cabinet Minister Yoshihide Suga said ‘the government

4
felt pains towards people who experienced hardships that are beyond description". Education
Minister Hakubun Shimomura expressed that ‘A series of remarks related to Japan’s
interpretation of wartime have been already misunderstood. In that sense, Mr. Hashimoto’s
remark came at a bad time’. Shimomura refers here to the expression of Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe in April 2013 on Japan’s 1995 apology that ‘the definition of aggression’ was
hard to establish and suggested that he may no longer stand by the wording of Japan’s 1995
apology (BBC News, 2013). In 2006, Japanese Prime Minister Abe already claimed that there
was no evidence of Japanese coercion and complicity in setting up and running the ‘’comfort
women’’ system. This resulted into an international firestorm of criticism (Honda, 2015).
In a response to the controversy that arose in response to his comments, Toru Hashimoto
made a statement at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Japan, where he stated that ‘’Japan
must express its deep remorse at the violation of the human rights of these women by the
Japanese soldiers in the past and make our apology to the women. Japan must remorsefully
face its past offenses and must never justify the offenses.”. Hashimoto claimed to be
misunderstood and misinterpreted, and that he didn’t try to justify the events during the
WWII. He also pointed out the question why Japan is singled out for censure, when many
other countries (including America and South Korea) have abused women’s rights in wars,
occupations and in the vicinity of military bases (Gattig, 2014). Hashimoto said that historical
research was needed to determine whether Japan ‘’as a state’’ was directly involved in human
trafficking of the comfort women’’, and also argued other countries to face up to the
possibility of similar offences regarding ‘’sex and the battlefield’’.
Right-wing groups
Even though Hashimoto is a member of the nationalist party Nippon Ishin no Kai, on national
scale a relatively small political party with little influence, there has been a rise of right-wing
popularity in Japan. First and foremost, this has occurred within the centre-right party LDP,
the conservative and moderately nationalist party which has almost continuously been in
power since its foundation since 1955. Its president is Shinzo Abe, the current Prime Minister
of the country. Abe provoked fury in 2007 by saying that the ‘comfort women’ were not
coerced into becoming sexual slaves of the former Japanese Imperial Army. He stated ‘There
was no evidence to prove there was coercion as initially suggested. That largely changes what
constitutes the definition of coercion, and we have to take it from there’ (Joyce, 2007). This
illustrates that Abe backs away from the position his government took on comfort women in
1993.
Another example is a recent statement from Yoshitaka Sakurada, was that ‘the comfort
women were prostitutes by occupation’ and that ‘people have been heavily misled by
propaganda work treating them as if they were victims’. He notes that it was only after World
War II that prostitution became an illegal occupation and says ‘’Because comfort women are
hesitant to say that they were prostitutes, I suspect wrong perceptions may have been spread
in Japan and South Korea’’. He later said that the remark was misleading, and sincerely
apologized to those who were being troubled. The South Korean Foreign Ministry slammed
the remarks as ‘’nonsensical’’ and ‘’ignorant’’ (Japan Times, 2016).
There are several ultra-nationalistic groups active in Japan, also known as ‘uyoku dantai’.
Most of these groups seek to justify Japan’s role in the Second World War to varying degrees
and deny the war crimes committed by the military concerning the comfort women in the pre-
1945 period. They are critical of what they see as ‘self-hate’ bias in post-war historical
education. Therefore, they also support the censorship of history textbooks and historical

5
revisionism, a by the international community widely criticised issue (Oh & Ishizawa-Grbic,
2002)
History books
A group of Japanese historians and academics urged McGraw-Hill, an American publisher, to
‘correct’ a college textbook which would contain ‘many erroneous’ expressions about sex
slaves used by Japanese soldiers during World War II. Claimed is that the women were
simply prostitutes, rather than being forced into prostitution (Fitfield, 2015).
An interesting, and often ignored view is from Park Yu-ha, a professor of Japanese literature
at Sejong University, who criticises the idea that the comfort women violated the ‘universal
women’s rights’ as an expression of ‘moral arrogance’, in her book ‘Comfort Women of the
Empire’. In her book, Park argues that most of the comfort women were actually Japanese,
rather than Korean, and practically all those who ‘lured’ or ‘forced’ Korean women into
prostitution were actually Korean collaborators and Japanese private recruiters, and not the
Japanese military or government (Sang-Hun, 2017) . In some cases, women were sold by
their parents to middlemen out of dire poverty, which was common in Japan too during its
economic difficulties before WWII. An important note is that the recent ‘South Korean
depiction’ that all Korean comfort women were ‘victims’ of the tyranny of the Japanese
military, is not accurate, and there were also many ‘voluntary’ comfort women. Park based
these findings on interviews with surviving Korean comfort women. She also addresses a
larger issue, where she states that ‘comfort women’ did not exist in wartime Japan alone, but
have existed since the ages going far back, and they exist now. Women who do similar work
in military bases all over the world are basically ‘comfort women’, even if they are not
conscious as such (Sato, 2017).
Park’s book was received with heavy critics and even lawsuits initiated by 9 Korean comfort
women. Intellectuals in South Korea and Japan have warned that Ms. Park legal troubles
illustrated how dangerous it can be to challenge conventional wisdom in South Korea about
historically delicate issues (Sang-Hun, 2017).
Recent critics have arisen concerning the history textbooks that are used in the educational
system of Japan, especially concerning high schools. Since the 1980s, Japan has been accused
of whitewashing the reality of Japan’s actions in China, by requesting for example that
authors replace the term ‘invasion’ by ‘advancement’. After two decades of relative calm on
the topic, a new crisis arose after a nationalist textbook was published by the Japanese
Society for History Textbook Reform. Even though only a small amount of junior high
schools adapted this textbook, it provoked a strongly disapproving reaction among
neighbouring countries, in particular the People’s Republic of China and South Korea. It’s
considered the tip of the iceberg and argued is that it is concealing a wider problem of an
‘erroneous view’ of history that in reality affects all Japanese textbooks in varying degrees
(Guex, 2015).
The Korean government has shown large displeasure over the textbooks, and this feeling is
largely shared by the Korean population. This shows in the creation of dozens of citizens
associations protesting against Japanese textbook revisionism. The content of the textbooks
seems to reflect the most conservative right-wing view of history, by presenting
contemporary Japanese wars in a ‘positive’ light, such as that they would be ‘defensive’, and
emphasising on the positive effects of these wars, the colonisation of Taiwan and the
annexation of Korea. These Japanese textbooks were guilty of ‘disparaging’ Korean history
with ‘embellishing’ Japan’s own history and placing the blame for colonisation on others, in
this case Korea. Korea’s complaints essentially focus on statements that were technically

6
correct, but potentially misleading. Next to that, Japanese editions of textbooks fail to provide
proper information on the comfort stations and comfort women, where in Korean textbooks
an opposite trend can be observed. While the Japanese textbooks are now the subject of
international attention, few studies have focused on Korean textbooks and on how they are
perceived by the Japanese. Even though the Korean criticism on the shortcomings of
Japanese textbooks is legit, it does not mean that the historical consciousness of the Koreans
is completely blameless (Guex, 2015).
Current situation
Amidst the various active political movements in Asia, the issue is specifically alive in South
Korea. In 2015, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and back then South Korean President Park
Geun-hye, reached a formal agreement to settle the dispute. The Japanese government agreed
to pay 1 billion Yen (around 8.5 million USD) to a fund supporting surviving victims, while
South Korea agreed to refrain from criticising Japan regarding the issue and to work towards
removing the statue memorialising the victims in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul
(Adelstein, 2015). However, this compromise has faced heavy backlash from some of the
comfort women themselves. They were mainly upset because they had no voice in the deal,
and because the money offered by Japan did not take the form of official reparations, which
would carry an acknowledgement of legal as well as moral responsibly, but instead were
presented as a humanitarian contribution. The two governments did not see the amount paid
as being an important factor as putting the issue to rest, however, many found the 8.3 million
USD insultingly low. Insisting on formal reparations would probably have not been
welcomed by the Japanese government, since South Korea had already renounced legal
claims against Japan in a 1965 treaty normalizing relations between the two countries.
However, South Korea states that the military brothel issue was never discussed during the
negotiations for that treaty and should be treated as an exception, Japan has been strongly
sticking to the letter of that agreement (Soble & Sang-Hun, 2015).
In 2016, the official and final agreement was reiterated between Japan and South Korea at the
United Nations Committee of the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. The
compensation of 1 billion Japanese Yen was taken along in the agreement and the deputy
Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs restated the Japanese Government apology of that
statement: ‘’ The issue of comfort women, with an involvement of the Japanese military
authorities at that time, was a grave affront to the honour and dignity of large numbers of
women, and the Government of Japan is painfully aware of responsibilities.’’ (CEAFDW,
2016).
In January 2018, a South Korean investigation appointed by the government concluded the
dispute over the women could not be ‘fundamentally resolved’ because the victims’ demand
for legal compensation had not been met. The response of Japan was that any attempt by
South Korea to revise the 2015 deal would make relations ‘unmanageable’. South Korea
would not seek to renegotiate the 2015 agreement, even though it failed to meet victim’s
needs and resolve the entire issue but hoped that Japan would make further efforts to help the
comfort women ‘regain honour and dignity and heal wounds in their hearts’. From the 47
survivors still alive back in 2015, 36 accepted the settlement. Japanese Foreign Minister Tao
Kono stated that ‘Japan can by no means accept South Korea’s demands for additional
measures’ (Shin, 2018). South Korean president Moon Jae-In said that Japan needs to
‘sincerely apologize’ to comfort women forced to work in Japanese wartime military brothels
if the long-standing bilateral issue is to be resolved. According to President Moon, it is
undeniable that the deal struck with Japan in 2015 to resolve the issue ‘finally and
irreversibly’ was an official agreement between the two countries, however, he sees some

7
aspects of the agreement as seriously flaws. He concluded that a real settlement would come
if the victims can forgive, after Japan makes a sincere apology and takes other actions.
However, the statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul has not been removed until
now. (Kyodo News, 2018). Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s respond was that the agreement
was supposed to be a ‘final, irreversible resolution’ of the issue and that Japan’s position is to
stick with the 2015 agreement and take no further measures (The Asahi Shimbun, 2018).

Conclusion
At the start of this research paper, the following research question was formulated and can
now be answered.
‘’Who were the comfort women during the Japanese colonial rule in Korea during
1910-1945 and in what way were human rights violated?''
The ‘comfort women’ in the context of the Japanese colonial rule, were prostitutes or sex
workers in Korea, Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia, serving the Japanese military. There
were an estimated 200.000 of these comfort women, on a voluntarily and on a forced basis,
and some of them are still alive. It took until the early 1990s for comfort women to come out
on the issue and voice their experiences.
Questions arose concerning the responsibility of the Japanese government for the system of
military ‘comfort stations’ and ‘comfort women’, and for the forced prostitution. After
analysing the different views and perspectives on the issue, no statement can be made on the
absolute truth concerning the issue. Probably, the truth lies in the middle: there were
voluntary sex workers, but also women put into trafficking against their will. There were
probably empathic Japanese soldiers as well, but also brutish soldiers who took advantage of
the women. However, structurally, comfort women were recruited in a ‘forced’ and
‘misleading’ way, often by Korean collaborators and Japanese middlemen.
In this regard, it’s also important to distinguish ‘prostitution’ combined with the organizing of
‘comfort stations’, and ‘forced prostitution’, where the former is an occupation and the latter
is a violation of human rights, and a crime. Throughout history, prostitution has been a
recognized occupation, whether criticised or morally justifiable or not, and still is today.
Therefore, it would seem to be a mistake to see the ‘voluntary’ prostitutes at the comfort
stations as a ‘crime’ committed by the Japanese government. It is undeniable that the
Japanese government has played a role in establishing and maintaining the comfort stations
(and admitted this), however, the government cannot be perceived as being the sole reason of
existence for comfort stations and forced prostitution during the colonial era, since much of
the human trafficking was initiated by external parties. However, this doesn’t undo the fact
that human rights were violated in a most vile and evil way, and the appropriate measures
must be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen (again) and the victims of the forced prostitution
must be compensated by any means required.
Based on the research question, a sub question arose concerning the follow-up of the comfort
women issue:
‘’Which acknowledgements and attempts of resolution have arisen concerning the comfort
women since the ending of the Japanese colonial era?’’
The comfort women-issue is an issue still alive today and has not found complete resolution
among the parties involved. Even though the Japanese government has provided several
apologies in 1993, 1995, and a final agreement was struck in 2015, there’s still a feeling
among Koreans that more can and should be done from the Japanese side in order to solve the

8
issue. South Korean comfort women feel that they haven’t been compensated sufficiently for
what happened to them during WWII, and demand further steps to be taken. There’s a strong
anti-Japanese sentiment noticeable amongst groups of South Koreans, of which the
colonisation by Japan is the main underlying reason. This strengthens the voice for ‘fairer’
compensation concerning the issue. In order to resolve the issue of the comfort women
permanently, it is of crucial importance that history gets passed on in an accurate and correct
way, without whitewashing the events that happened during the Japanese colonial era and the
WWII. By these means, the historical awareness concerning the events of the ‘comfort
women’ and the committed war crimes remain existent, and the deep emotional wounds can
ultimately heal.

9
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