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Sample Research Essay 5B

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  • January 18, 2022
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Assignment 5b: Research Essay

Amy (Arum) Song

English 353

Sonia Atwal

12th December 2021.

Unraveling the Convoluted History of South Korean "Comfort Women"


The comfort women controversy, which has gained prominence in South Korea over the

past three decades, has historical roots in the 1930s and the 1940s. Following the Japanese

invasion of China in 1937, "around 200,000 women, most of whom were Koreans, were drafted

or dragged against their will" to serve as sex slaves in Japanese military brothels, better known as

"comfort stations" (Shim 252). These women were euphemistically referred to as “comfort

women” by the Japanese government and military. Historians have come up with radically

different claims about the nature of the comfort women system during the Second World War. A

few of them, including Japanese right-wing nationalists, hold that the system was "a military

version of licensed prostitution" (Soh 229). On the other hand, the Korean Council and several

other human rights groups regard the system as a blatant violation of fundamental human rights.

While South Korea has demanded that Japan should "legal responsibility for the crimes of sexual

slavery," the Japanese government "has not paid heed to the call for it to accept legal liability for

the comfort women" (Ward and Lay 258). Since conflicting interpretations of a historical event

have given rise to the controversy, it can be brought to a successful closure by performing an

unbiased historical analysis of the Japanese wartime comfort women system. A comprehensive

historical inquiry will reveal that Korean comfort women were forcibly or deceitfully recruited

by the Japanese military to work as sex slaves, subjected to blatant human rights violations

, Song 2


within the comfort stations, and finally, silenced by the patriarchal society in South Korea upon

their return. Well-developed introduction, Arum. You provide an excellent context to the

“controversy”

Although the term “comfort women” has positive connotations of safety and caregiving,

the comfort women who served in the Japanese comfort stations were recruited solely for the

sexual gratification of Japanese soldiers. The term “comfort women” is the “direct translation of

the Japanese euphemism, ianfu, which was used by the Japanese military" to refer to the women

who they had forced into sexual slavery (Hilsdon et al. 39). The earliest comfort stations were set

up to reduce the incidences of sexual misconduct and rape committed by Japanese soldiers.

According to the recollections of senior officers in the Shanghai Expeditionary Army, the

Japanese army set up the first comfort station in Shanghai in 1932 as a response to "an incident

in Shanghai in which Japanese soldier raped a woman" (Hongxi 29). Besides, unrestrained

sexual activity had already increased the prevalence of venereal diseases among Japanese

soldiers. The comfort women system provided the Japanese authorities with an alternative that

could solve the problem of sexually transmitted diseases without restraining the Japanese

soldiers. The comfort women were kept under strict supervision by the Japanese army and "were

given 3–4 clinical exams every day" to check for signs of venereal disease (Hongxi 37). Since

such incidents of rape and widespread venereal disease could tarnish the reputation of the

Japanese Imperial Army, the comfort stations were set up as institutionally sanctioned centers for

the satiation of Japanese soldiers' sexual urges.

The recruitment of Korean women as sex slaves for the Japanese comfort stations was

carried out under the supervision of the Japanese army, with the aid and abetment of the

Japanese government. Although right-wing Japanese nationalists continue to dispute the

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