Comfort Women Research Paper

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Recommended: The role of women in Japan before and after World War II

After World War II , the abuse of the “comfort women” was prolonged by the stigma of their societies and the Japanese government’s refusal to take legal responsibility. The “comfort women” stations inflicted horrible violation and cruelty upon their victims, but the issue was not unique to the period of World War II. The patriarchal system existed before the “comfort women” crime, and has justified and prolonged the abuse after it. Women, especially in colonial Korea, were oppressed by the sexist social constructs and attempted to flee this and create new, independent lives for themselves. However, upon fleeing, they were recruited into a military sexual slavery system, which tied militarist agendas and sexism together. Patriarchal customs
Extraordinarily, many “comfort women” were able to find a way back, but they were not welcomed warmly upon their return. The women were seen as “social pariahs” and were either too ashamed to go back to their families, or were shunned by them. Some women did return home to their families, and kept the memories of abuse and defilement to themselves out of fear and shame.Former “comfort women” today lead lives of intense physical if not mental suffering. They are many times sterile, own very little financially and are unable to stay in their marriages or get married at all.Gertrude Balisalisa, a “comfort woman” from the Philippines was further abused by her husband and family after being liberated, and was treated as if she was “something filthy”. Others, such as Tomasa Salinog, never married, fearing male sexual violence. The testimony of Moon Ok-ju, who has since deceased, displays the various afflictions of a former “comfort woman”:
“Currently my living condition is below poverty level even though the Korean government gave me a small place to sleep. Also I have a physical disability which resulted from an accident during a troop bivouac in Burma. I was entertaining soldiers when a drunken soldier pushed me out of a second or third floor window...Now I have pain all over my limbs because of my bad back...Just as I feared, I did not marry, nor did I have children. I am all

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