Genocide, Political Violence, Human Rights. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021. xx, 299 pp. (Tables, B&W photos.) US$45.00, paper. ISBN 9781978814967.
In 1995, Yoshiaki Yoshimi published his groundbreaking study exposing the large-scale and systematic confinement and rape of up to 200,000 women known as “comfort women” by the Japanese military during World War II. It took the author almost 25 years to complete his account that bears witness to the unspeakable sufferings of women and to the work of the redress movement which led the global revolt of the victims against Japanese neo-nationalism and hate speech as well as gender and class based stigmatization. One objective of Yoshimi’s book was to narrate the history of the Korean redress movement from its origins in the 1980s to its global expansion in the 2000s. A second objective was to deconstruct and refute the main argument of Sarah Soh’s 2008 influential study where she claimed that Korean patriarchy and Korean recruiters bear responsibility for the system and that comfort women were not slaves because they received fees for their services or had romantic relationships with Japanese soldiers. As Soh’s claim resonates with Japanese nationalist ideas, it is the aim of Pyong Gap Min’s Korean “Comfort Women” to rebuke the argument that the comfort women were nothing but commercial prostitutes who worked more or less voluntarily for money in Japanese military brothels. To debunk this myth the author analyzes the contents of 103 Korean survivor testimonies (22 of whom he interviewed personally). These oral history testimonies are important primary sources of information because the Japanese military destroyed all related records and evidence after its defeat. What distinguishes the approach chosen by the author from qualitative accounts is his reliance on quantitative data analysis. The testimonies, based on 2,600 pages of narratives, have been consolidated in statistical tables, around which the entire book is organized. For each subtopic discussed, the author underpins his argument with statistical evidence (unfortunately, a list of tables is missing). The first three chapters introduce the concept and methodology, give a brief account of scholarship in the field, and trace the historical context of the emergence of the redress movement and its aims—namely acknowledgment of legal responsibility for the crimes and receiving a formal apology and adequate reparations from Japan. The author stresses that gender, social class, and colonization of Korea by Japan account equally for the formation of the system.
Chapters 4 to 9 provide key information to prove the coercive character of the system. Chapter 4 reveals, for example, that 93 percent of the comfort women were minors, which was and is illegal under international law (84), and chapter 5 states that 80 percent of mobilization methods involved coercive methods of deceptive employment (90). Hence, according to Min, women were not sold out of poverty by their families to recruiters or brothel owners as falsely claimed by Japanese neo-nationalists (256). Chapter 6 reveals that 53 percent of comfort women received no money at all for their services and that brothel owners illegally charged them for the cost of their recruitment and transportation. The coercive character of the system is also demonstrated by the fact that the women were not allowed to leave the brothels and were subject to physical abuse, beatings, and killings. Chapter 7 reports in this regard that 70 percent of comfort women experienced severe beatings and other forms of violence during their long stays (on average four years) at the brothels. Sixty-one percent of women sustained serious bodily injuries and 29 percent became infected with STDs or became infertile as a result of daily multiple rapes over years (129). The sufferings did not end with Japan’s defeat. Upon returning home to Korea, half of the surviving women were killed, died, or committed suicide (144). Chapters 6 and 9 cover the issues of homecoming and difficultly re-integrating into Korean society. The last three chapters focus on redress responses in South Korea (10), ambivalent reactions in Japan (11), and the hugely supportive movement in the United States (12).
Ambivalence is highlighted because the disgraceful reactions of Japanese neo-nationalists contrast with the noble gestures of support and acceptance in Japanese civil society. One of the key strengths of the study is to give credit to the many ordinary Japanese citizens supporting the cause of Korean comfort women (266). On the other hand, the author engages critically with the unsuccessful attempts of both Japanese and Korean authorities to draw a line under the past. Korean “Comfort Women” is an important contribution to the existing scholarship because it is meticulously researched and nuanced. Moreover, the testimonies—published in English for the first time—expose the personal conflicts and emotional distress plaguing the women.
The study is neither bashing Japanese nor whitewashing the contradictory policies of past South Korean presidents and deep-rooted sexism and patriarchism of Korean society. Yet, one would have wished to get more clarification on the reasons for rejecting the various reparation schemes. It remains, for instance, unclear why the Korean Council pressured Korean comfort women not to accept reparation money form the Asian Women’s Fund in 1995, while other Asian and European women accepted reparation payments. Could it be that the Korean Council leadership took too much ownership? The author is throughout the book sympathetic to the Korean Council, yet omits to mention that Yoon Mee-hyang, former head of the Korean Council, was charged in a financial fraud and embezzlement scandal in September 2020. It remains also unclear why the apology expressed in the 1993 Murayama-Kono statement could not satisfy the victims. The author himself mentions in his book a Japanese-Canadian anthropologist who wonders how many times the Japanese must apologize before the victims accept it as such? Despite these minor points of philosophical discontent, Korean “Comfort Women” provides a truthful and factual account of the ordeals suffered by comfort women that deconstructs the distorted and biased history views of Japanese neo-nationalists.
Patrick Hein
Ochanomizu National Women’s University, Tokyo