For what it’s worth – perhaps if MCLC editors are gauging list members’ responses to this – I absolutely agree. I’ve always found it strange how the war-time Japanese euphemism for sex slaves is the term in common use.

Luke Gilkison <luke.gilkison@gmail.com>

I emailed the Pacific War historian my recent post, and he further corrected my terms to “(military) gang-rape facilities” and “(military) sex slaves,” and stated that:  “these things should not be talked about/normalized in terms of prostitution, brothels or anything of that sort.”

At a panel of the annual New York Conference on Asian Studies just a few years ago, it was strongly suggested by an historian of the Pacific War that more accurate vocabulary be used when referring to this phenomenon, namely: we should refer to “rape stations” rather than “comfort stations”,  and “sex slaves” rather than “comfort women.” He further suggested that “stations” was a euphemism, since the women were forcibly kept there, as prisoners.

Source: What’s on Weibo (7/6/17)
Footage of Comfort Women in Yunnan Made Public after 73 Years

For the first time in 73 years, moving images have been made public that show Korean women imprisoned by the Japanese army in China, where they served as comfort women. The 18-second-clip made its rounds on Chinese social media on June 5th.

The footage was filmed in Yunnan province, in southwest China, in 1944. Previously, there were numerous texts and photographs documenting the imprisonment of comfort women in China, but this is the first time for these moving images to be made public showing these particular scenes of wartime China.

A South-Korean research group, consisting of members of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul National University Human Rights Center, made the footage public. Researchers say the clip shows seven Korean women in front of a private house used as a “comfort station” in Songshan, Yunnan Province.

According to the Korea Times, the research team found the footage at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration after a two-year search for film records. This source also says that the film allegedly shows a Chinese military officer of the US-China Allied forces speaking with the women.

At the time the moving images were filmed, Japan was losing the war and the US-China Allied Forces defeated the Japanese in Songshan, where ‘military comfort stations’ for the Japanese troops were situated.

Footage of Comfort Women in Yunnan Made Public… by whatsonweibo Continue reading →