he Military Sexual Slavery Problem in Imperial Japan," Shin Sung Chung (1977) attempts to provide an objective presentation of the facts of the case, arguing, "It has been alternatively concealed and unveiled according to changes in the balance of power between the countries involved" (p. 220).
Chung (1977) begins by discussing terminology, since the parties have no universally accepted language to talk about the issue. "Military sexual slavery" is the phrase used by the Korean Council and the United Nations, but this is charged language and covers a variety of different kinds of practices used with different groups of women. Chung (1977) observes, "It was not until 1937 that the Japanese government created an official brothel policy and began to systematically establish brothels in areas where soldiers were stationed" (p. 223).
Chung acknowledges the difficulty of studying the subject, in part because the Japanese army destroyed most of their records after Japan was defeated. Yet, Chung (1977) observes, enough evidence remains to show that "the Japanese Army's systematic, well-planned, and inhumane implementation of military sex slavery policy brought the military exploitation of women to new levels" (p. 230). This was the result of several aspects of Japanese Imperial society, and Chung spells these out in some detail, offering a good outline for further examination of the social issues that made such practices possible.
Bonnie B. C. Oh's ( ) "The Japanese Imperial System and the Korean 'Comfort Women' of World War II" begins by putting the issue into context. Military prostitution is not unique to 20th century Japan but Japanese society was able to institutionalize the practice in unique ways. Oh ( ) argues, "Given [the] open acceptance of systematized and legalized prostitution, it is not surprising that there should have been an organized brothel system in the Japanese military" (p. 5). Oh considers the historic ...