comfort women

comfort women. In January 1938, after the Japanese Army had moved into China (see China incident), a system of brothels was opened there for Japanese troops. This was done partly to control venereal disease (see medicine), but also to prevent a recurrence of events in Nanking in December 1937 when Japanese troops pillaged the city, raping and massacring its inhabitants. Later the system, only made legal by the Japanese Diet in August 1944, spread to other Japanese-occupied areas such as Burma. The brothels were called ianjo (comfort houses) and the ianfu (comfort girls) who staffed them were recruited for 1,000 yen each. After this had been repaid (at two yen per soldier) they were, in theory, free to return home, but most were forced into prostitution. A number of nationalities were involved, including Japanese (for officers only), and it has been estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 girls (some as young as 12) and women were recruited for the system, or for forced labour, most of them from Korea. In January 1992 the Japanese prime minister apologized in person to South Korea's National Assembly for Japan's role in abducting Korean women, some of whom later that year began a legal action against the Japanese government for compensation.