ABSTRACT
The Japanese government today generally upholds the 1993 acknowledgment by Chief Cabinet Secretary Kōno Yōhei of state and military culpability in the wartime comfort women system but forcefully disavows a key admission: the coercive mobilization of women and their sexual enslavement by Imperial military forces. Here, I reexamine the Kōno statement’s unequivocal findings, now under fierce attack by revisionist lawmakers and government leaders, and demonstrate that they are fully validated by known historical facts. I also point out the shortcomings in his pronouncement and suggest how these can be overcome.
Specifically, I draw on a wide array of historical documents and personal testimonies to show that military comfort stations were created and maintained by the Imperial armed forces; that the women interned there were forced into sexual slavery; that they were enticed, abducted, or trafficked; that in territories occupied by Imperial armies, Japanese military and government authorities participated directly in the rounding up and taking away of victims; and that the responsibility for the above acts rests squarely with the Imperial military. In concluding, I underline the problems of the 2015 Japan–Republic of Korea comfort women agreement, explaining why, in its present form, the accord will never produce a genuine resolution of this issue.
