Comfort women suffer from PTSD
Nearly 70 percent of the former “comfort women” are still suffering from psychological trauma from Japanese military sexual slavery, according to a study, Wednesday.
Comfort women refers to Korean women and girls who were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.
A research team led by Lee So-young, a psychiatry professor at Soon Chun Hyang University Bucheon Hospital, found 65 percent, or 13, of the surviving former comfort women have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and 90 percent of them have also suffered from related symptoms at least once in their lifetime.
In July 2016, her team began interviewing 20 out of 38 victims of Japan’s wartime crimes who agreed to participate in the study.
However, only 28 are known to still be alive. In the early 1990s, 238 came forward and shared their stories of abuse.
What is more serious is that the current trauma prevalence rate is relatively high compared to other prior studies of World War II-related trauma, including the survivors of wartime sexual violence, the study noted.
“A study on 316 elderly Austrians showed even though 97.5 percent of the sample reported at least one lifetime trauma, PTSD was present in 1.9 percent, and another survey of 27 elderly German women who survived sexual assault at the end of World War II found 19 percent reported significant current PTSD symptoms,” it said.
“The first reason for such a high prevalence rate of PTSD in the former comfort women would be because they were victims of massive sexual violence. Also, the fact that most of them were in their adolescence at the time of the trauma would be crucial,” the study said.
According to the study, early-life trauma is reported to be more impactful, resulting in more lasting and pernicious effects over the life course.
The research imputes the high prevalence rate of PTSD to the unsettled controversy regarding the wartime sex slavery issue.
Although Korea and Japan reached a deal to end their dispute over the matter in December 2015, the victims and civic groups as well as citizens believe the Japanese government failed to acknowledge the country’s legal responsibility for its wartime atrocities.
“The ongoing dispute over the comfort women issue seems to re-traumatize the survivors and contribute to their persisting symptoms of PTSD,” said Lee.
The professor added the trauma should not be considered a matter of the past, but today.
“As most of the studies had been published in Korean, this article could enlighten many others who are not familiar with the issue,” she said.
Further, this article could also provide insight into the consequences of the trauma of victims of sexual trafficking, which is still happening around the world.”