The Japanese Comfort Women and Sexual Slavery during the China and Pacific Wars

by Caroline Norma

Overview

The Japanese military was responsible for the sexual enslavement of thousands of women and girls in Asia and the Pacific during the China and Pacific wars under the guise of providing 'comfort' for battle-weary troops. Campaigns for justice and reparations for 'comfort women' since the early 1990s have highlighted the magnitude of the human rights crimes committed against Korean, Chinese and other Asian women by Japanese soldiers after they invaded the Chinese mainland in 1937. These campaigns, however, say little about the origins of the system or its initial victims.

The Japanese Comfort Women and Sexual Slavery during the China and Pacific Wars explores the origins of the Japanese military's system of sexual slavery and illustrates how Japanese women were its initial victims.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472507808
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/17/2015
Series:	War, Culture and Society
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Caroline Norma is Lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
Caroline Norma is Senior Lecturer at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia. A historian of Japanese modern history and a qualified Japanese translator and interpreter, she is the author of The Japanese comfort women and sexual slavery during the China and Pacific wars (2015) and Comfort women and post-occupation corporate Japan (2018).

Table of Contents

Introduction: The First Victims
1. Scapegoat Survivors: Japanese Comfort Women and the Contemporary Justice Movement
2. The Taisho Democratisation of Prostitution
3. The 1930s' Militarisation of Civilian Prostitution
4. The Military Democratisation of Prostitution
5. Japan's Imperial Sex Industries and the Trafficking of Colonial Prostituted Women into Comfort Stations
6. Okinawan Prostituted Women and Comfort Stations at War's End
Conclusion: Sexual Slavery and the Crucible of Contemporary Japan
Index

Editorial Reviews

Making abundant use of survivor testimony - Japanese victims included - Caroline Norma makes clear the need to continue to learn from the violence endemic to Japan's history of state-sponsored sexual slavery many decades ago. The current day incidences of sexual slavery as a weapon of war makes this history more urgent than ever.
Alexis Dudden, University of Connecticut, USA

From the Publisher

Making abundant use of survivor testimony - Japanese victims included - Caroline Norma makes clear the need to continue to learn from the violence endemic to Japan's history of state-sponsored sexual slavery many decades ago. The current day incidences of sexual slavery as a weapon of war makes this history more urgent than ever.

Alexis Dudden