Illinois Global Review

Lee Ok-seon was only 14 years old when she was kidnapped and taken to a “comfort station” in China, one of a series of brothels run by the Imperial Japanese Army from 1932 to 1945.

There, she was subjected to abuse and sexual slavery for three years until the end of the Second World War. In 2002, she shared her story with Brown University to spread awareness of the issue and advocate for proper justice. After this, she worked alongside other victims of the Japanese comfort stations and similar atrocities from other wars until her passing on May 11, 2025, leaving only 6 of the 240 officially registered survivors left in South Korea.

Lee is one of the estimated 200,000 girls and women who were forced to provide sexual services to the Japanese army. Victims, as young as 12 years old, were kidnapped from their homelands, such as Korea, China, Malaysia, Burma, Indonesia, and the Philippines. They were often raped, beaten, tortured, and killed. Amnesty International reports that, while many took their own lives or were killed by Japanese soldiers, the survivors experienced isolation, shame, and extreme poverty.

The concept of comfort women can be traced back to the early 20th century, when Japan became a major world power after modernizing during the Meiji Restoration. This era significantly changed the nation, altering its political outlook, increasing economic growth, and changing social structures. Some of these changes included the establishment of a parliamentary system and universal education as well as the modernization of its military forces. These developments eventually fueled national ambitions and planted the seeds of imperialism.

Following its victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan solidified its influence across the continent. In 1910, it annexed Korea, where it suppressed Korean national identity and exploited the state’s resources and population. At the same time, they also expanded their sex industry in Korea and China. These institutions were the first instances of comfort women, and were exclusively run by the military, managed by civilians with close supervision from military officers, or disguised as facilities open to the public with special prioritization for the armed forces.

By 1932, Japanese authorities formally began to permit these establishments as ‘comfort stations’ for their militia based in Shanghai, China, and eventually expanded to other occupied territories. The overall purpose of the brothels was to provide relief and pleasure and to boost morale after fighting. Other justifications were to control the behavior of the army, to contain disease and sickness among them, and to prevent rape by Japanese soldiers to avoid hostility from the citizens in the area.

To house the comfort stations, their recruitment was done through coercion, kidnapping, financial deceit, or false educational opportunities. Young girls were targeted because they were usually single, had no formal schooling, and came from low socioeconomic backgrounds. They utilized personnel such as local leaders, private recruiters in the area, brothel owners, or labor brokers for selection.

Once they had reached their quota, the victims were transported to regions where they did not speak or understand the language to prevent escape and resistance from occurring. Since they were away from home and their loved ones, it was also a way to degrade their sense of identity and deprive them of autonomy. The comfort stations were heavily controlled with barbed wire and weapons in the surrounding area, while victims were constantly questioned by the Japanese military police on their allegiances. Those who were caught attempting to escape were tortured in front of the others as a warning.

As a result of these harsh conditions, many experienced the traumas of being raped multiple times a day, brutality, mistreatment, and murder while being displaced from their homes. By the end of the Second World War, a large number had died from physical abuse, disease, starvation, and acts of violence from the war.

Those who did manage to survive had to endure the aftermath with long-lasting consequences, such as emotional and psychological scars, inability to bear children, and stigma from society, due to the cultural emphasis on purity and chastity, leading most to become silent about their experiences.

Even to this day, former comfort women express a deep sense of self-contempt, humiliation, and isolation from their societies, with some still identifying themselves as ‘prostitutes and sinners’ due to social structures and environments in their respective countries. This was further complicated by the Japanese government and their extensive measures to conceal their existence with an organized effort to burn, destroy, and hide official records about the system, their activities, and other detailed information.

It remained this way until August 4, 1991, when Kim Hak-soon testified and shared her story on South Korean television. It was the first testimony that confirmed what Japan had previously denied decades before. The event soon encouraged others from China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, and the Netherlands to come out and speak out about their experiences. The following year, Korean comfort women began to protest in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Wednesday, a tradition that continues to this day.

Three years after Kim’s accounts were revealed, then-Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, Yōhei Kōno, issued a statement that addressed the subject, apologized for his country’s actions, and expressed remorse over the events. Eventually, they established the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF) on July 19, 1995, as a means of monetary compensation to the victims. However, it was criticized as the payments were not from the state and the government only took moral liability. This led many Korean women to reject the idea, resulting to the eventual dissolution of the AWF in 2007.

While Japan has admitted its past actions to a certain extent, it still does not hold legal responsibility despite pressure from other countries and international organizations. A 1996 UN Special Report issued by Special Rapporteur R. Coomaraswamy established that comfort women were indeed sex slaves and stated a recommendation that the Japanese Government should issue an apology and provide compensation.

Unfortunately, the irony of the comfort system is that it provides anything but. Young women were displaced from their homes, deprived of their identity and autonomy, and forced into an environment that viewed them as disposable all in the name of imperialism. Although history books may have marked the Second World War as over, these women still carry scars, both visible and invisible, and fight the battle for recognition, justice, and accountability.

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