SEOUL — From time to time, the media reports the stories of young women and girls abducted or deceived into sexual slavery for the Japanese Army. They went wherever the Japanese Army went, even to the front lines, during World War II. They were inhumanly forced to have sex with from 20 to 100 soldiers a day. Japanese soldiers treated them like public toilets. Those Korean women, victims of horrific atrocities, have been referred to as the comfort women. Many were killed. Some who survived have borne both physical and psychological scars for the rest of their lives. As of June this year, 144 comfort women were confirmed to be living in this country.
Why were those responsible for this atrocity not prosecuted after the war? Shamefully, it was not uncommon for reigning monarchs of the Choson Kingdom of Korea (1392-1910) to solicit the favor of Ming Chinese emperors by sending certain numbers of virgins to China as a compulsory requirement. The comfort system appeared during a time when the world’s organization regarded prostitution as a natural by-product of military movements. The Roman Empire made use of a similar system for its armies. The Spanish brought more than 1,000 prostitutes with them when they invaded the Netherlands in the 16th Century. The British military placed a register for prostitutes in India, providing compulsory medical examinations and toiletries. During World War II, the German Army installed military brothels in occupied territories.
Sexism and racism might have also affected the Allies’ decision not to prosecute those responsible for the atrocity. For example, when the Allies returned to Dutch Indonesia, the Dutch discovered that the Japanese occupying Batavia, now known as Jakarta, had forced approximately 50 interned Dutch women and 100 local women into prostitution. The Dutch tried Japanese officers and agents for the forced prostitution of the Dutch women, but not of the local women. The Dutch trials, which had taken place in 1948, were not common knowledge until 1992, when the Hague released the records to the public with the condition that names of the Dutch victims would remain sealed until 2025. No other Allied force is known to have considered forced prostitution as a war crime.
Why has it taken so long for the women to make themselves available, even for some sort of restitution? On a personal level, chastity was always revered in Asian countries. The loss of virginity meant a life of ostracism with little chance of marriage. The attitude in turn led to poverty, because in most Asian countries, a woman’s major or sole source of support came from her husband. One woman, X, had begun the process of becoming a nun before the war. During the war, she was one of the Dutch women forced into prostitution. Although she did not testify at the war crimes trial, she told the Catholic church of her ordeal. As a result, the Catholic church declared her unacceptable as a nun. Indeed, most of the victims seem to have concealed the crimes committed against them.
After World War II, while Japan was recovering economically, war broke out between South Korea and North Korea, with China intervening on behalf of the North and a UN-organized force intervening for the South. Korea and Japan did not finalize a treaty of settlement for Korea’s claims until 1965. Because of the devastation in the Pacific during World War II and the Korean War, the documentation of claims was then almost impossible. Without U.S. involvement, Japan continued to show reluctance to apologizing, presumably on the grounds that no status of war between colonial Korea and imperial Japan ever existed. Korea, like other Asian countries, agreed to accept economic grants as settlements for all claims.
Japan has conveniently used the treaty as a shield against any subsequent individual claims. In the same way, I experienced problems in the courts in the 1990s regarding a dispute over land ownership that was clouded by the devastation of the war. During the 1970s and 1980s, Koreans experienced an economic boom, and also the most profound emergence of women’s rights groups in Asia. The plight of the comfort women became a hot issue in the 1990s. They deserve to be given restitution for everything that they have suffered.
Forced prostitution did not come to an end with World War II. During the recent Bosnian conflict, the media was full of reports that the Serbian military engaged in mass rape and forced prostitution of Bosnian Muslim women. The comfort women, as victims of atrocities, must serve as examples of how we must bring these crimes to light, and bring aid and comfort to other women who have been similarly brutalized.
As a final note, I would like to cordially take this opportunity to offer my delayed congratulations to The Korea Times for its 50th Birthday (Nov. 1), and thank all its people who are living by the pen, past and present. In particular, I want to extend my thanks to Mr. Bang Tae-yung, the former editor, who printed my first article, "A Glance At Post Liberation," on Aug. 15, 1985.

The writer is former SOFA Advisor at Camp Casey. He resides in Seoul.