Comfort Women In Asia During WW2- In Honor of Women's History Month

⚠️ Content Advisory Statement

This episode discusses wartime sexual

violence, coercion, and historical trauma related to the “comfort

women” system during World War II. Some listeners may find

these topics distressing. We encourage you to listen at your own

pace and prioritize your well-being. Support resources are

included in the episode description. 

March is Women’s History Month — a time to honor resilience,

resistance, and the often untold stories of women who shaped

our world. Today’s episode explores one of the most painful and complex

chapters of 20th-century history: the system of sexual

enslavement known as the “comfort women” system during

World War II. Across Asia — including Korea, China, the Philippines,

Indonesia, and beyond — thousands of girls and women were

coerced or forced into military brothels run by the Imperial

Japanese Army. For decades, many survivors lived in silence,

carrying trauma that extended far beyond the war itself.

In this episode, we examine not only the historical record, but

also the enduring psychological impact, the fight for recognition

and justice, and the global movement to preserve survivor

testimony.

This conversation contains discussions of sexual violence and

historical trauma. Listener discretion is advised.

We approach this topic with respect, care, and a commitment to

centering survivor voices.

 Thank you for joining us.

📚Resource List for Listeners

Historical & Educational Resources

• The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance – Advocacy,

survivor testimony, and educational materials

• Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace – Research and

documentation center in Tokyo

• Amnesty International – Reports on wartime sexual violence

• United Nations Human Rights Office – International reports and

statements

Books

• The Comfort Women by George Hicks

• Comfort Women Speak by Sangmie Choi Schellstede

•  The Undrowning Lotus: A WW2 Historical Novel, Based on a True Story of a Sexual Slavery Survivor-by Jenny Chan 

Documentaries

• The Apology (dir. Tiffany Hsiung)

• Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women

Mental Health Support (U.S.-based)

• RAINN – 800-656-HOPE or rainn.org

• National Alliance on Mental Illness – nami.org

Transcript

0:01

You're listening to Project Redcord Chronicles, a podcast of the Renee Jones Empowerment Center. Welcome to the special episode of Project Red Core Chronicles, comfort women in Asia during World War ii in honor of Women's History Month. We have a content advisory. This episode discusses wartime sexual violence, coercion, and historical trauma related to the comfort women system during World War ii. Some listeners may find these topics distressing. We encourage you to listen at your own pace and prioritize your wellbeing. Uh, support resources are included in the episode description. March is Women's History Month. A Time to honor resilience resistance. And often untold stories of women who shaped our world. Today's episode explores one of the most painful and complex chapters of the 20th century history. The system of sexual enslavement known as the Comfort Women's System during World War ii. Across Asia, including Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and beyond. Thousands of girls and women were coerced or forced into military brothels, run by the imperial Japanese army. For decades, many survivors lived in silence carrying trauma that extended far beyond the war itself. In this episode. We examine not only the historical record, but also the enduring psychological impact, the fight for recognition and justice, and the global movement to preserve survivor testimony. This conversation contains discussion of sexual violence and historical trauma. Listener discretion is advised. We approach this topic with respect, care, and a commitment. To centering survivor Voices, thank you for joining us. to welcome you to this special episode of Project Rare Core Chronicles. Today we have a special guest with us today, Jenny Chan, and she is the founder of Pacific Atrocities Education, and we'd like to say welcome to you, Jenny. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So I want you to share a little bit with our audience about the work of Pacific Atrocities Education. Yes. So we're a nonprofit that dedicates some researching about World War II in age, because 90% of the time you hear about World War ii, you think it's like Eurocentric, but a majority of the victims actually happened. And the ities actually happened. For World War ii. And so we have been scanning documents for ii from the National Archives. We've scanned like about a million pages. And and also we interview survivors from World War II as well. And we record, we recorded their history like maybe 10 years ago when they would go alive and. Yeah, so we report and also develop lesson plans and curriculum related to World War II and like book related to World War II in Asia and also YouTube. Our YouTube channel is specific front and told. Nice. Wonderful. That is wonderful because I wanted our audience to know. Do you have a website that you wanna share in case our audience? Yes. Our website is. Yes, our website is pacific atrocities.org. Okay, good. That way people can learn even more about everything that the great work that you're doing. I wanna start off for our listeners who may be unfamiliar who were the comfort women during World War ii. Yeah, so comfort women were basically women and girls who were between the age of 14 to 25 who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Army before and during to I'm saying before because. People believe that World War II started in 1939, but even before 19 nine 19. In 1937, there was the Japanese invasion of China. And even before then there were the occupation, which was in China and when they were, when Japan was invading China, it was, there were a lot of actual violence against women. And so they did it. To control the sexual violence behavior, needed to have some kind of sanctioned system, which is the comfort woman system, to keep it so that they can make it controlled and make it STD free. And so the estimate is between 50,000 and 2000 women were victim of this comfort woman system. That's a lot of women and like you said, women and girls. How did the Imperial Japanese military establish and maintain that comfort station system? Yeah like I said earlier, this is a system that they were trying to do to prevent, to kind prevent STD, also the list of sexual violence. And so they created this kind of comfort system to prevent random rapes of civilians, although soldiers were still rape civilians after comfort women stations were established. So because Korea was actually a Japan. Japanese calling time. They promised these Korean girls that they get a fact job or they're going to be trained as a nurse and only to do a sign up here. And then when they showed up they realized that they were being, coerced into a comfort women's station and where they were going to be serving or actually being raped basically by these Japanese soldiers like many times a day. I actually talked to when, in 2014 I into these women in XI and they were the comfort in China. And at the comfort station it was these women were counting to me that they basically captured from their home and they were like, basically brutalized and raped like 10, 15 times a day and one of and they were so good at instilling fear into these women and the girls. Actually, I would say that it, there was girl who fought back who were also in this village that were captured in China and they basically killed her in free everyone else. So they, that kind of fear and kind of control system in that comfort woman mission. And yeah and there were also cases where they just kidnapped them at their homes and not reception of what they were going to do. They just took them outta their houses and yeah. Wow. Yeah, that was something. So what are some of what regions were most affected? By, for the regions? Yeah, so Korea, like I mentioned, was a Japanese colony, so they saw the highest numbers of victims. And, but then wherever that the Japanese was our soldier, wherever the Japanese soldiers were at there were also those are also regions that would be like local girls. And so then there were girls from China, the Philippines Indonesia, Taiwan, Myanmar, just to name a few. And I remember me reading this woman's memoir, I think her name is Jan, and she was talking about her time being captured in the first station, and she was a younger kid living in like Dutch control into China. And she never talked about it for a while until people in the nineties were starting to talk it because these women after surviving ation, they live with so much shame. Yeah, and I think those, and people don't think about this in terms of indonesia was a Dutch colony. So then some of European women in the Dutch colonies were also basically captured by the Japanese to serve at comfort stations as well. And I learned. And my time visiting the survivors and learning more about these conversations is that they had like tear system, so the, these women would travel with these troops. They would like maybe be with the general, so then a one to one situation versus if you're hearing woman. Because it's a jazz colony, then it is more they have to work with like mid-tier soldiers and the local groups that they abduct from, local situation, they will be working with the very like infantry men. And their situation will be brutal than if the Japanese or or just a Japanese, at the time and yeah, and a lot of the women really did talk about it until the 1990s because they had lived with so much shame afterward because they were just like, when they were released, they were either still teenagers, young adults, and they're trying to. Get married or to trying to move on with their life and in Asia, like there's this kind of taboo, this is a kind of taboo topic. I don't know. Because you also work with a lot of survivors, right? Yes. Are they ashamed of talking about their situ. Yeah. A lot of times until, recently that's what we basically provided services for victims of human trafficking and even survivors, because most of the time there's not been any specialized services to help them heal. So they have lots of trauma. Yeah, they have lots of things they've been through. They don't, they feel ashamed, they feel, as if they had something to do with it when all along they were the victims. So I certainly understand. How these women and girls must have felt because there was no, no one to understand what they had been through and what they had suffered. So definitely. What kind of myths or misconceptions do you think still exist about the comfort women today? Yeah, I think one of the most damaging myth is that these women were like voluntary, pro voluntary prostitutes. Like historical records and survivor testimonies confirmed that they were held in conditions of fin of confinement and like sexual slavery. Subjected to repeated. Violence with no freedom to leave. And so I think that is, to me that's human trafficked. But then I remember still that when I was first posting about comfort women on social media, like there were a lot of like deniers who would like, comment and say oh, they were high paying prostitutes. These, this is a false claim about this comfort. Women's station system and whatnot. So I think that's one of the myth and misconception, and it's wild to me that like after 80 years of World War ii, people are still denying the fact that these women were trafficked and basically were sold into kind of this like sexual slavery. And, it's, it is interesting. That's why this is really good to share, especially during women's History month, because even though, even here when we are dealing with women that have been trafficked, because if the community or anyone doesn't have an understanding of what human trafficking is, then they sometimes accuse the women of choosing this lifestyle. And no one would choose something like that. But it's the same kind of thing that can happen. Luckily we are starting to get more education out about human trafficking. So someone just doesn't see a woman or a girl in a situation and think that she chooses to be in this situation. She really doesn't have any control over it, So I think just that's why the education. It's so important as well as the history so people can understand it's the same, it's the same thing, and it happens all over the world. When we are thinking about historical trauma, how did the experience of the comfort women reflect broader patterns of gender-based violence during wartime? Yeah, so I think the system really reflected like a wartime view of women's bodies as military commodities. And it's like a pattern that you see in many conflicts where sexual violence is used as a. Tool of war to exert power and dehumanize the enemy. And and like you said, this is people need to learn more about this about gender based violence. What were the immediate and long-term psychological effects on these survivors? So some of the women that I talked to from Shanxi China they were like. They told me that they didn't want to talk about it for the longest time after the war, and so no one really, like their kids didn't know about it until the 1990s when they first started talking about it. And I think it suffer, people suffer a lot of like severe PTSD and depression and social anxiety and I, this is a time when people didn't even know about like PTSD and whatnot. I interviewed this like woman who. Was actually who got pregnant after being serving the military men for like daily, for almost two years. And she got pregnant and and her mom told her, Hey, let's go to this cave and basically buried this baby so then we don't have to deal with it. And then they never talked about it like. Ever again. Until like later down in her life when she talk about it. So I think it's it's not just like psychological trauma for her, then it was also like for her mom and also for the baby who then. They basically killed because of this consequence. And there were also many who suffered from like physical infertility and chronic pain due to this kind of extreme brutality and that, and the lack of medical care in these comfort stations. How has silence or denial compounded trauma for those survivors? Yeah, I, that's a great question and especially in like Asian culture too. There's no one really wanted to talk about it until until there was one survivor who talked about it in the nineties, and I think that and I. I suspect that there were still a lot of survivors who would never talk about such things, but and I think those survivors may remain silent, mostly due to like social stigma and the shame associated with like sexual assault. And when the government. Too denied this kind of history and also like these trolls that I was talking about on social media denied this kind of history and kind of inflicts this like secondary victimization, which signal to the survivor that their pain is either invalid or that their experience or what they're saying was a lie. Yes. That's really true. And also in what ways has this trauma been passed down to children and grand grandchildren of these survivors? Yeah, I think, like I was saying earlier, that this woman, buried one of her child that she, gave birth to after the fact, and that's direct, that's direct trauma. The child didn't even survive childhood and also if you think about it, there were. Children who were growing up with, mothers who were probably emotionally distant to them because of what had happened to them in the war and also or physically Ill, can't even like to the point that there were f. Farming girls who were captured in the comfort stations who then can't even work after the war. And so then they're taking time to recover and it create this cycle of like unexplained grief and also secondary trauma within the family itself? Yes. Because I think that's very important for people to understand, even when we're working with victims and survivors making sure, because, somehow sometimes you'll see the same pattern, like a generational thing where even some of their children may end up in a trafficking situation. They have so much trauma, PTSD and so many things they're struggling with. Sometimes they get addicted to drugs and therefore a lot of times they are not able to keep their children sometimes. So it's just, you can see the similarity in what these victims go through, and the struggles are the same. So when we think about justice recognition and accountability I have a, just a couple questions to wrap it up. Is to what role has the international human rights organizations played in advocating for survivors? I think groups like UN and Amnesty International, they both have classified the conversation system as a crime against humanity. And this kind of global pressure forced the issue out of the shadows and into, onto the diplomatic stage in the 1990s. Because then you're no longer just arguing with Denialists who. Argue that it never happened. Yes. That's really good. So my last question is, what does justice look like to survivors today? Yeah. What does that look like for survivors? I think, there needs to be education on, in terms. Being taught that, of this part of history and also is a sincere apology for those people to admit that of the legal responsibility by the Japanese government at the time. And what's interesting too is like also like maybe having. More of an education system that focus on like women's experience in the war. And also like they were erecting statues as well for that give survivor a permanent place in history. But I understand that like in places like Manila, they were, because of the diplomatic issues that they had, they were getting like economic. Help from Japan. So then they had to take down their statue of comfort women, which I think it's interesting because it shows that women are like a secondary thing. Women's rights, like a secondary thing to like economic and diplomatic issue. Wow. I really thank you because this'll be, it's, it is a perfect topic for Women's History Month and to make people familiar with this that are not familiar with it. And it is just so many similarities and things that we see with human trafficking victims. Same struggles, same traumas, the important need for services to be provided to these victims for what they have been through. So I am certainly grateful for the work that you and your organization does for you speaking to the victims and survivors because I know that must have felt great that they could share with someone who really cared about what happened to them. That's really important. Work. I want to congratulate you for doing that. Yeah. Thank you. And I want to also ask how does this historical silence of like comfort women compare to like the silence that the survivors of modern trafficking feel like that they must maintain in their own city, right? I'm pretty sure you're in Cincinnati. Like you were saying earlier that they feel shame and there's this shame, like how does that compare to a longer day? I think the difference here, like we're located in Cleveland. Cleveland, Ohio. And the difference is I think that now we have more awareness. We didn't use to have a lot of awareness, but we make sure that there's lots of, there's a collaborative that works with different organizations who work to help survivors. Whether it is. Like a rape crisis center, or the collaborative to end human trafficking. That's a collaborative we have where many organizations are a part of it, and they each provide services to victims and survivors. And then the, with the opportunity for. Victims and survivors to really know that there is something available to help them. That's what's making the difference. It's still a struggle because most people still are not informed, but we are doing a better job educating people. About human trafficking and what the laws are and'cause there's sometimes people think, oh, we have a law for that. And sometimes there may not be a law even in particular areas. So it's very important that if there are services to help people that have been victimized. But for example, like we did a global initiative in Africa, Malawi, Africa, for that same reason of just making people aware of what trafficking is and how people, they take advantage of vulnerable people who may have just very basic. Needs or, they just have, they just want to take care of their families. They might need a job, they may need housing. So I think that one of the keys is to educate people about this. I like that you're doing that and to find out if there are services available, if there are organizations internationally that can help survivors. With services to help them heal from PTSD, provide counseling provide opportunities for them to interact with other people.'cause that isolation is also. A huge part of recovering. So that's what I would share. That needs to happen. Yeah. So I think this is good and we hope that, many people will listen at this and see, there may be services out there that we're not aware of. So it's important that we share information. With each other to make sure that we care about women all over the world, women and girls all over the world who have been trafficked and to let them know that somebody cares for them. And so I thank you for this and hopefully we'll be able to do something more. That would be amazing. If we could do something more. Yeah. So we'll keep in touch. Yeah. Thank you so much. I thank you for having me. Yes. So thank you so much and for joining us for this episode of Project Red Core Chronicles. Thank you for having me.