The Silence of the Comfort Woman

The unfortunate case of the Comfort Women during WWII was for many years a “silent” tragedy. From Japan to Indonesia, women and girls as young as thirteen years old were unknowingly recruited to work in the military to “help” their troops during the war. Of course, when they arrived at the military sites, they were forced into being raped daily by numbers as high as thirty soldiers a day. The women were sterilized so that they could not produce children and injected with drugs that were highly addictive such as opium. If any women were to become pregnant, they would be killed. It’s estimated that only 25 percent of the comfort women in various sites actually survived. Many died of the venereal disease, multiple rapes, and the brutal beatings and physical torture by the soldiers.

For many years, comfort women, especially Korean women, were silent about the issue. At the most, some previous comfort women told some members of their family they could trust or they told no one at all. They felt that they would be as shameful women. After all, they had no proof of the treatment they endured and the government surely wouldn’t admit to anything that is considered to be a high crime of war. Also, many of the previous comfort women most likely wouldn’t have been able to get married if they would have told about their being raped in the military. For a woman, especially in Asian countries, your virginity or purity is the only worth you have. Without that, you don’t have anything else.

Between 1963-1972, Korean women formed a union telling the Japanese government that they needed to publicly apologize to the Comfort Women, tell the whole story about what really happened in the comfort stations, and to raise a memorial in honor of the comfort women that died during the WWII. Unfortunately, the Japanese government refutes all the claims of the comfort women saying that they knowingly joined the military for prostitution. These allegations keep the comfort women from achieving their goals because the public will believe their government first.

One day, I hope that these women will get the recognition that they truly deserve. The case of comfort women was a situation that could have been avoided. These young women could have been able to enjoy their lives and get married and have kids. Unfortunately, that dream for so many of them is was taken away and can never be regained.