While warfare continues inflicting damage and suffering in today’s world, and rape of women is still used as an instrument of armed conflicts, it is critical to bring the narratives of the “Comfort Women” into public memory.

Historian Harrison C. Kim traces how discourse on “Comfort Women” in North Korea has evolved—at times in dialogue with the outside world—while developing distinct advocacy practices and perspectives.

The right-wingers in Japan deny any direct involvement of the Japanese government, citing that the documents proving that the Japanese Army or Japanese government had directly ordered the establishment of the “comfort stations” have never been found. They also claim that neither the Japanese army nor the Japanese government were involved in mobilizing “comfort women”, and that private businesses simply recruited “comfort women” by illegal means. Having accepted these claims, the Abe administration is contradicting what the previous Japanese government had admitted.

Written by Choi Jae-in (The translator of 『Fifty Years of Silence』 by Jan Ruff O'Herne)

Until 2022, when the book The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory was published, it was widely thought in Singapore that there were no Singaporean "Comfort Women" who were sexually enslaved by the Japanese military.