Rare footage of Korean comfort women released

SEOUL: The Seoul government has released rare video footage of Korean women forced to work in Japanese military brothels during World War 2, the first time moving images have been shown of the “comfort women”.

A government-funded research team from Seoul National University found the footage, which was filmed in 1944 by an American soldier, in the United States National Archives after a two-year hunt.

“South Korea has not had its own data on comfort women and (has) been relying on Japanese and American data,” said Kang Sunghyun, an academic on the team.

“It is crucial for South Korea to have our own data for the issue of comfort women,” he said.

The 18-second black-and-white clip shows seven women lined up outside a brick house, being questioned by Chinese soldiers. The women were found by USChina allied forces in China’s Yunnan province, the research team said in a statement.

The women were registered by US soldiers, the research team said. Two women in the video had already appeared in previously released photos of “comfort women”.

The term is used to describe girls and women from South Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere, who were forced into prostitution in Japanese wartime military brothels.

South Korean activists estimated that there may have been as many as 200,000 Korean victims. Reuters