I will start to clarify
points on the comfort women issue in series.
Vol. 1
In 1973 SENDA Kakou*) (Real name is SENDA Sadaharu) wrote a book titled "Comfort Women" published by Futabasha. The book said that 200,000 Korean women were recruited by the Japanese military forcibly, and fifty to seventy thousands of them became comfort women.
*) Reference: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%83%E7%94%B0%E5%A4%8F%E5%85%89
According to the research made by the Asian Women Foundation (TAKASAKI Soji), this article may have been a mistranslation of Seoul Shimbun, and the figures seemed to have been groundless. (Note: TAKASAKI Soji specializes in Japanese history being a Korea watcher and a professor at Tsuda College).
The term "Comfort Women Attached to Military: "Jugun Ianfu" in Japanese) was used in the book for the first time. It said, "Out of 200,000 Women's Volunteer Corps (Joshi Teishintai in Japanese) fifty to seventy thousand women were employed to work for the military as comfort women. However, the researches made afterwards proved that there was no evidence that women belonging to the Women's Volunteer Corps became comfort women.
According to the research made by TAKASAKI Soji, he found an article of Seoul Shimbun of August 14, 1970, which said, "There were about 200,000 members of the Women's Volunteer Corps in Japan and Korea. Korean women could have been around fifty to seventy thousands in 200,000, meaning that the rest of them were Japanese." The number "fifty to seventy thousands" was also groundless. Judging from reliable sources, the number of Women's Volunteer Corps in Korea was about 4,000, and therefore it is impossible that there were 200,000 Women's Volunteer Corps.
Further researches were made by TAKASAKI Souji and KIM Yondal* on the above issue, and as a conclusion, the mistranslation of the Seoul Shimbun article by SENDA Kakou became the confusion between Women's Volunteer Corps and Comfort Women.
(* KIM was originally a Korean national and later he became a Japanese citizen with the Japanese name of ONO Eitatsu)
In my opinion, SENDA Kakou started to fabricate the comfort women story, which was explained in the book mentioned above. He was quite irresponsible because his book was utilized by many non-Japanese people to accuse the Japanese military during the war time as criminal organizations to have abused Korean comfort women.
In the next post, I will write about YOSHIDA Seiji, who fabricated a story on the comfort women in his book "My War Crimes". http://jpnso.blogspot.jp/2013/08/questions-on-comfort-women-issue-ii.html
Vol. 1
In 1973 SENDA Kakou*) (Real name is SENDA Sadaharu) wrote a book titled "Comfort Women" published by Futabasha. The book said that 200,000 Korean women were recruited by the Japanese military forcibly, and fifty to seventy thousands of them became comfort women.
*) Reference: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%83%E7%94%B0%E5%A4%8F%E5%85%89
According to the research made by the Asian Women Foundation (TAKASAKI Soji), this article may have been a mistranslation of Seoul Shimbun, and the figures seemed to have been groundless. (Note: TAKASAKI Soji specializes in Japanese history being a Korea watcher and a professor at Tsuda College).
The term "Comfort Women Attached to Military: "Jugun Ianfu" in Japanese) was used in the book for the first time. It said, "Out of 200,000 Women's Volunteer Corps (Joshi Teishintai in Japanese) fifty to seventy thousand women were employed to work for the military as comfort women. However, the researches made afterwards proved that there was no evidence that women belonging to the Women's Volunteer Corps became comfort women.
According to the research made by TAKASAKI Soji, he found an article of Seoul Shimbun of August 14, 1970, which said, "There were about 200,000 members of the Women's Volunteer Corps in Japan and Korea. Korean women could have been around fifty to seventy thousands in 200,000, meaning that the rest of them were Japanese." The number "fifty to seventy thousands" was also groundless. Judging from reliable sources, the number of Women's Volunteer Corps in Korea was about 4,000, and therefore it is impossible that there were 200,000 Women's Volunteer Corps.
Further researches were made by TAKASAKI Souji and KIM Yondal* on the above issue, and as a conclusion, the mistranslation of the Seoul Shimbun article by SENDA Kakou became the confusion between Women's Volunteer Corps and Comfort Women.
(* KIM was originally a Korean national and later he became a Japanese citizen with the Japanese name of ONO Eitatsu)
In my opinion, SENDA Kakou started to fabricate the comfort women story, which was explained in the book mentioned above. He was quite irresponsible because his book was utilized by many non-Japanese people to accuse the Japanese military during the war time as criminal organizations to have abused Korean comfort women.
In the next post, I will write about YOSHIDA Seiji, who fabricated a story on the comfort women in his book "My War Crimes". http://jpnso.blogspot.jp/2013/08/questions-on-comfort-women-issue-ii.html
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