red in battlefield actions. More women than men, however, are killed and injured in the context of what military apologists attempt to dismiss as collateral damage. Even more damaging to the welfare of women in wartime environments, however, is the purposeful and planned use of sexual violence and sexual slavery as military strategy, tactics, and policy (Conlon, 2004; Sidel & Levy, 2003).
The use of rape, sexual slavery, and other forms of sexually oriented violence and terror against women in wartime environments is not a new phenomenon (Gottschall, 2004; Matsui, 2001). Neither, are these practices on the wane (Baker & May, 2004; Clarkson, 2004; Oosterhoff, Zwanikken, & Ketting, 2004). Such acts cause major public health problems in both the short-term and in the long-term (Gottschall, 2004; Carballo & Smajkic, 1995).
The severity and the persistence of the health outcomes for the women victims of wartime sexually oriented violence, terror, and slavery justify the investigation of the phenomenon as a public health issue (Eisenberg, 1998). One form of the phenomenon is referred to as "survival sex", which is the participation in sexual activity as a means of staying alive. Survival sex has many manifestations ranging from commercialized prostitution to prostitution by street children and the homeless to sexual slavery and other motivations for engaging in unwanted sexual behavior.
One form of survival sex involves the organization and management by military occupation forces of prostitution houses for use by soldiers of occupying armies. The occupying armies of a surprisingly array of nations (including France, Japan, and the United States, among others) have conducted such activities (Tanaka, 1996). One of the most serious instances of the sexual slavery of women through the conduct of such activities as a part of military policy was perpetrated by the Japanese military in the 1930s and 1940s in southeast Asia. The Ja...