The 1978 second edition of the *Kojien* dictionary offered a very simple explanation: "Comfort women were women who accompanied the army to battlefield units to comfort soldiers." However, the dictionary didn't answer the questions: What was the meaning of "comfort women," and how was this "comfort" conducted? Were the comfort women's voluntary or forced service?
The 1983 third edition of the *Kojien* dictionary supplemented the definition, defining it as "women who comforted soldiers in battlefield units." Clearly, this explanation still obscured the true meaning of "comfort women," failing to reflect the incredibly cruel sexual abuse suffered by comfort women at the hands of Japanese soldiers throughout history.
The sixth edition of the *Kojien* dictionary showed improvement, defining comfort women as women forcibly conscripted by the Japanese army during the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, who were sexually exploited by soldiers, including many women born in colonies and occupied territories.
The 7th edition of the *Kojien* dictionary finally provides an objective definition, defining "comfort women" as women who served as sexual partners to Japanese soldiers in battlefield comfort stations under Japanese military control during the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War. Most were women from colonies and occupied territories, forcibly recruited and forced into service.
The *Daijirin* dictionary offers a similar explanation, defining comfort women as women recruited from Korea and other Asian regions during the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, forcibly required to serve as sexual partners to Japanese soldiers in the field.
From this change in the definition of "comfort women," we can glean two important pieces of information.
Compared to previous definitions, both Japanese dictionaries reveal the hidden truth behind the ambiguous term "comfort women." That is, these "comfort women" were not voluntary but forced. These forced women primarily came from Asian countries such as China and Korea.
Second, while the new definitions represent significant progress, they retain another ambiguity: who forced these women to serve as "comfort women"? Who were the main perpetrators? Was it the wartime Japanese government and its army, or those working in the sex industry? Clearly, neither dictionary provides further clarification.
In 1996, the UN Human Rights Commission commissioned Radik Kemaraswami to conduct an investigation into the issue of Japanese military "comfort women." In his final report, the Sri Lankan jurist stated that, according to international law, "comfort women" constituted organized rape and slavery crimes committed by Japan during the war. On November 22, 1994, the International Commission of Jurists published its report on the issue of Japanese military "comfort women," concluding that the lives of "comfort women" in comfort stations were extremely miserable, suffering not only sexual humiliation but also beatings and torture. The tragic fate of these women did not end with the war. After Japan's defeat, large numbers of women were massacred by the Japanese army or abandoned and died in foreign lands; only a few survived. The Japanese military was the founder and manager of most "comfort women" facilities, responsible for transporting women abducted or deceived from China, Korea, and the Philippines to these facilities. In 1998, the International Commission for the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities approved the report submitted by Special Rapporteur Guy J. McDullough, entitled "Modern Forms of Slavery: Mass Rape, Sexual Slavery and Equivalent Slavery in Times of War and Conflict." The report stated that from 1932 to the end of World War II, the Japanese government and military forced over 200,000 women into sexual slavery in Asia.
These largely consistent conclusions have been endorsed by progressive individuals and organizations worldwide and can be considered an international consensus. "Comfort women" refers to women forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers and officers under orders from the Japanese government or military. The comfort women system was a system in which the Japanese government forced women from various countries to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese military during World War II, systematically providing sexual slaves to the Japanese army. It was a system of state crime committed by Japanese militarism, violating humanitarian principles, gender ethics, and the norms of war, and was institutionalized. The history of "comfort women" is an unprecedented and most tragic record of enslavement in the history of women worldwide.
Coercion refers to the deprivation of personal freedom by comfort women. Women known as "comfort women" were subjected to sexual slavery under the control of the Japanese military. This is the most important characteristic distinguishing them from the Japanese military's sex slavery system, the Japanese public prostitution system, and general commercial prostitution.
Historically, when the Japanese military expanded the scope of "comfort women" from Japanese women to refer to Chinese and Korean victims, the term became inapplicable. The existence of Japanese military "comfort women" lasted from 1932 to 1945. After 1937, it gradually evolved into a system of sexual slavery, and after the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, Japan extended comfort stations to various parts of Southeast Asia.
The so-called "comfort women" system refers to the Japanese government and its military superiors forcibly abducting or deceiving women to serve as "comfort women" and establishing comfort stations for the Japanese military. After launching a full-scale invasion of China in 1937, Japan gradually promoted comfort stations throughout its army, navy, and air force. In major Chinese cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Wuhan, and even in remote rural areas, wherever Japanese troops were stationed, there were comfort stations (including temporary ones set up in strongholds and pillboxes). After the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, this system spread to Southeast Asia and Pacific islands. Japanese government departments involved in the forced recruitment of women and the establishment of comfort stations included the Ministry of the Army, the Ministry of the Navy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the police system, and local governments of various prefectures. Therefore, the Japanese government and its military were the midwives of this system of sexual slavery.
The Japanese military typically established agencies at the army level to manage comfort stations, with the General Staff, the Management Department, and the Medical Department jointly responsible for matters related to comfort stations. Sometimes, specialized agencies were established under the bartenders' offices or military stations. Some were called "Section [number]," while others were simply named "Comfort Station Section" or "Comfort Women Section." For example, within the Kwantung Army, the Third Staff Section of the Headquarters was responsible for establishing and managing comfort stations. The Japanese Unit 7331, stationed in Shanghai, had a dedicated comfort station section. The 11th Army's supply depot in Wuhan also had a comfort station section, composed of eight people: two officers, two non-commissioned officers, and four soldiers. This depot also established branches throughout Hubei, forming a vertically managed organization responsible for managing "comfort women" and supervising the operation of the comfort stations.
To meet the sexual needs of millions of Japanese soldiers, high-ranking Japanese government officials and military leaders attempted to establish comfort stations more systematically, even planning and proportionally promoting them. In 1941, the Japanese Kwantung Army launched a large-scale "Kwantung Army Special Large-Scale Exercise" to counter the Soviet Union. According to the exercise's "Combat Mobilization Plan" approved by the Japanese Emperor, "700,000 soldiers were mobilized for comfort services, and 20,000 'comfort women' were to be used in the military," intended to be taken to Manchuria and Siberia. At the time, the Third Staff Section of the Kwantung Army Headquarters made precise calculations, indicating that the ratio of Japanese soldiers to "comfort women" should be 37.5:1. If women recruited locally are included, the number of "comfort women" would be even greater.
Therefore, "comfort women" were victims of the military sexual slavery system established by the Japanese state during World War II, and the "comfort women" system is a representative and symbol of Japanese war crimes during World War II.