Comfort Women Speak: Testimony by Sex Slaves of the Japanese Military : Includes New United Nations Human Rights Report (Science and Human Rights Series)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"During World War II, an estimated 200,000 girls and young women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese imperial military, which was authorized by the highest levels of Japan's wartime government. This system resulted in the largest, most methodical and most deadly mass rape of women in recorded history." "Japan's Kem pei tai political police and their collaborators tricked or abducted females as young as eleven years old and imprisoned them in military rape camps known as "comfort stations," situated throughout Asia. These "comfort women" were forced to service as many as fifty Japanese soldiers a day. They were often beaten, starved, and made to endure abortions or injections with sterilizing drugs. Only a few of the women survived, and those that did suffered permanent physical and emotional damage." "Little was known about the true scope of this crime against humanity until 1991, when after almost fifty years of silence, seventy-four-old Kim Hak-soon bravely told the world of her experiences as a comfort woman. Her testimony gave others the strength to tell their stories. The Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues (WCCW) carefully transcribed and translated the stories of nineteen survivors, which are now presented in this book." "These courageous women have shared their experiences to document a crime that must never be repeated. They seek a formal apology and reparation from Japan's government for the horrors it imposed on them. Thus far, that government has responded with gestures that many survivors regard as a new and more subtle form of the same degradation they have faced throughout their lives." "This is not simply a history book. Comfort Women Speak documents the lives of nineteen courageous women who continue to fight to bring to account one of the most powerful governments in the world."--BOOK JACKET.

SYNOPSIS

During World War II, an estimated 200,000 girls and young women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese imperial military, which was authorized by the highest levels of Japan's wartime government. This system resulted in the largest, most methodical, and most deadly mass rape of women in recorded history.

Japan's Kem pei tai political police and their collaborators tricked or abducted females as young as eleven years old and imprisoned them in military rape camps known as "comfort stations," situated throughout Asia. These "comfort women" were forced to service as many as fifty Japanese soldiers a day. They were often beaten, starved, and made to endure abortions or injections with sterilizing drugs. Only a few of the women survived, and those that did suffered permanent physical and emotional damage. These courageous women have shared their experiences to document a crime that must never be repeated.

This is not simply a history book. Comfort: Women Speak documents the lives of nineteen courageous women who continue to fight to bring to account one of the most powerful governments in the world.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

From about 1933 until the end of WWII, the Japanese military conscripted an estimated 200,000 women to work in "Comfort Stations" or brothels where Japanese soldiers could receive sex on demand. Frequently lured from their homes with promises of high-paying factory work, these women, most of whom came from countries like Korea and the Philippines (which were under Japanese rule at the time), were imprisoned in the comfort stations for as long as eight years, received no money for their services and suffered torture or even death if they refused to comply with the soldiers' demands. Because those who survived were too traumatized and ashamed to speak of their experience, the history of the comfort women remained largely unknown until 1991, when one survivor spoke out and brought the attention of human rights activists to the women's plight. Here the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues has compiled an oral history comprised of interviews with 19 surviving comfort women, who describe their ordeals in harrowing detail. They were routinely underfed and forced to service up to 50 soldiers a day. While their responses to their experience range from anger to resignation, all feel that their lives were permanently blighted as a result. As the first volume in a series on science and human rights issues, these testimonies make a powerful case for the apologies and reparations that the Japanese government has yet to grant. Readers dedicated to human rights, and women's rights in particular, as well as Korean-Americans will form a solid if modest market for this moving document, whose text is complemented by articulate photographs by Soon Mi Yu. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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