Comfort women

Comfort women is a euphemism for women who were forced to work as sex slaves in military brothels in Japanese-occupied countries during World War II. In the Japanese language, ianfu (慰安婦, comfort women) is a term coined by Asahi Shinbun in the 1980s to refer to these wartime prostitutes. jūgun-ianfu (従軍慰安婦, "military comfort women"), those who served in Japanese military brothels during World War II in Japanese colonies and war zones, was also used, but is seen infrequently these days.

Links

• Asian Women's Fund web site
• Comfort-Women.org

Academic research

• The Comfort Women project
• Hayashi Hirofumi's papers on comfort women
• Toward Comfort Women Survivors: Japan Policy Research Institute Working Paper 77.
• Japan's Comfort Women, Theirs and Ours: Book review, Japan Policy Research Institute Critique 9:2.
• Journal of Asian American Studies 6:1, Feb 2003, issue on American studies of comfort women, Kandice Chuh, ed.

Japanese official statements

• Statement by Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the occasion of the establishment of the "Asian Women's Fund" (1995, Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• Letter from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the former comfort women (2001, Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Historical documents

• House Concurrent Resolution 226 (June 23, 2003, 108th United States Congress), introduced by Rep. Lane Evans (Illinois 17), referred to House Committee on International Relations; not passed.
• Japanese Comfort Women (1944, United States Office of War Information)

Modern peacekeeping and forced prostitution

• 'Nato force 'feeds Kosovo sex trade' - The Guardian
• 'Kosovo UN troops 'fuel sex trade'
• 'Bosnia: Sex Slave Recounts Her Ordeal - Institute for War & Peace Reporting
• 'Conflict, Sexual Trafficking, and Peacekeeping
• 'UN troops cautioned on sex abuse