Documents shed new light on ‘comfort women’ system in Heilongjiang

Heilongjiang Province has for the first time released documents on how the invading Japanese army set up so-called “comfort stations”– centers where women were forced to provide sexual services – in the province during WWII.

The first document on comfort women outlined the establishment of the Suiyang comfort station in detail, providing direct evidence that the comfort women system was a subordinate system of the Japanese military and thus a heinous crime committed by the then Japanese government.

The document was found when staff at the Heilongjiang Provincial Archives were translating and organizing files of the Japanese puppet army. It detailed the process of how the Japanese invaders established a comfort station in Suiyang County (Suiyang Town), said Nie Boxin, an expert from the Heilongjiang Provincial Archives, news portal hljnews. cn reported.

It shows that although it was run by civilians, the Suiyang comfort station was established under the supervision of the Japanese army, who also had it built in their own dormitory.

The operator of the comfort station as well as the so-called “waitresses” came from Korea. The 13 comfort women were chosen from over 2,000 women “recruited” in Korea and relocated to this station, hljnews.cn reported.

It clearly stated that the so-called “Korean restaurants” were actually comfort stations whose function was to serve Japanese soldiers and officers.

The document provided direct evidence that the comfort women system was widely practiced, and that comfort stations were indeed organized by the Japanese government and army.

It contradicts the claims of the Japanese right-wing forces that comfort stations were merely commercial enterprises and had nothing to do with the Japanese government or army.