Comfort Woman: A Filipinas Story of Prostitution and Slavery under the Japanese Military.

• Author: Rodell, Paul A.
• Position: ASIA - Book review

Henson, Maria Rosa. Comfort Woman: A Filipinas Story of Prostitution and Slavery under the Japanese Military. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Little-field, 2017.

During the Second World War, the Japanese military high command initiated a program creating "comfort stations" for their soldiers in occupied territories where designated local women were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers. One of the army's key rationales for the program was that the health of the troops could be protected from venereal disease transmitted by sexual contacts outside of its control. Also, this "relief" for the men would supposedly stem incidents of the rape of civilians. Such stations were created in Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaya and filled with approximately 100,000 women impressed into service. In most cases they were indigenous women, but in Indonesia some Dutch women were also taken to the stations, or "rape camps." To this day, the Japanese government continues to claim that the women were either volunteers or prostitutes.

In her memoir, Comfort Woman: A...