Korean Comfort Women: History, Decades of Silence & Denial, & Modern Activism & Protest

By Kate Rickwa

In Book II Chapter 10 of Pachinko, World War II has recently ended, and Yangjin and Sunja discuss the potential fates of their previous employees and housemates, Bokhee and Dokhee, after Yangjin and Sunja left Korea for Japan. The pair worry about what may have happened to them having heard stories about young women being manipulated with false promises about earning higher wages and moving elsewhere, and how “‘the girls who went to work in factories were taken somewhere else, and they had to do terrible, terrible things with the Japanese soldiers’” (Lee 238). History does little to quell these fears and proves Yangjin has every right to worry. From 1932 (possibly even earlier) to 1945, the Japanese Imperial Army abducted and coerced thousands of young women and forced them to become “comfort women,” aka sex slaves for Japanese soldiers and officers during World War II (Ching). Estimates of the total number of victims range from 70,000 to 200,000, and only one-third made it out alive at the war’s end (Jonsson). While the Japanese military trafficked women from multiple nations and cultures, about 80% of all comfort women were Korean, evidence of the racism and Japanese colonialism present at the time, as well as elements of misogyny and patriarchy and nationalism, that all fed into the comfort women system existing for so long and being horrifically successful in its purposes and intentions (Kowner). Because of the centrality of Korean characters in Pachinko and the overwhelming majority of comfort women having been Korean, this project focuses mainly on research surrounding the experiences of Korean comfort women, but it must be noted that women from multiple other nations were forced into this system as well.

So much remains unknown and unaddressed about comfort women and the role of the Japanese government in this horrific era of human rights violations, due to deliberate document and evidence destruction; the patriarchy and the shame and humiliation experienced by victims, forcing them into silence for decades; continued denial and limited support for survivors; and past legislation preventing the South Korean government from further inquiring into the issue or demanding reparations. The issue has only recently begun gaining attention and traction within the past 30 years, with ongoing protests and demands for justice persisting at this very moment.