ABSTRACT
During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), Japanese soldiers repeatedly massacred and raped civilians wherever they went, but in Yu County, western Shanxi Province, where partisan forces had the upper hand, sexual violence was savage. In August 1940, Imperial troops suffered a major defeat there and launched a punitive campaign in reprisal. The army set up comfort stations in urban areas where it had established general, brigade, and battalion headquarters. In the villages, tactical units set up “rape centers,” where local women rounded up in pacified areas and those “delivered” on army orders by their villages were assembled, confined, serially raped, and in some cases tortured.
Women were incarcerated for long periods of time, suffering severe physical and mental trauma, but the details of this abuse did not emerge publicly until the late 1990s, when three victims’ groups instituted civil suits against the Japanese government. Of the 16 plaintiffs, 15 had been sexually assaulted on a daily basis in rape centers. Japanese district and high courts acknowledged the women’s testimonies as credible, confirming the facts of forcible recruitment.
Survivors’ families and communities, however, regarded these war experiences as shameful, and for half a century the women remained silent. The existence of rape centers was common knowledge among villagers but could not be spoken of openly, and few written accounts exist. The Chinese plaintiffs overcame these difficulties and stood up to demand justice. Speaking out about their wartime ordeals has empowered these victim-survivors, enabling them to open a new page in history.
