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.

References

Some recent work on the comfort women issue include:

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• Tanaka, Yuki Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation, London, Routledge: 2002. ISBN 0415194016.
• Yoshimi, Yoshiaki Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, Columbia University Press, 2001. (mentioned RAA too) ISBN 023112032X.
• Molasky, Michael S. American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa, Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0415191947, ISBN 0415260442.
• D. Kim-Gibson, Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women, 1999. ISBN 0931209889.
• Hicks, George L. The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War, 1997. ISBN 0393316947.
• Schellstede, Sangmie Choi. Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military, 2000. ISBN 0841914133.

A review of the Tanaka text can be found in the academic journal Intersections, Issue 9:

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• Morris, Narrelle. Review of Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation. http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue9/morris_review.html

A review of some of these books and a history and historiography of the issue, from a critical viewpoint, can be found in issue 58:2 of Monumenta Nipponica:

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• Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashii "Comfort Women: Beyond Litigious Feminism"

A work of literature on the issue was created by Korean American writer Nora Okja Keller:

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• Nora Okja Keller "Comfort Woman", London, Penguin: 1998. ISBN 0140263357.