| Summary: | "Comfort women" is a euphemistic term referring to women and girls who were sent to serve the Japanese military in locations throughout Asia. The existence of military comfort stations have been confirmed in China, Hong Kong, French Indochina, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, British Bomeo, the Dutch East Indies, Burma, Thailand, New Guinea (in the eastern Pacific), the Okinawan archipelago, the Bonin Islands, Hokkaido, the Kurile Islands, and Sakhalin. The establishment of these stations followed Japanese troops wherever they were based (Yoshimi 2000). Military comfort women were systematically recruited during the period from 1937 to 1945 to "serve the sexual 'needs' of Japanese military during the Asia Pacific war" (Yoshimi 2000:29). These women and girls were restrained by the Japanese military, afforded no rights, and forced to have sex with military personnel. Comfort women were subjected to inhumane and unsanitary conditions and were forced, in some cases, to "serve several tens of soldiers every day" (Ueno 2004:ix).
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