The “Comfort Women” system was not only a violation of women’s rights, but also a grave infringement of children’s rights. In this article, Professor Ñusta Carranza Ko examines how imperial Japanese authorities systematically violated the rights of underage girls, in direct contravention of international conventions of the time, reframing the issue as a case of child rights violations.

Japan’s state-level responsibility for the “comfort women” issue in the context of the country’s history of licensed prostitution system

The irony is that Germany, which is often hailed as a “model” country for past liquidation by providing compensation to victims of wartime forced labor through government-industry collaboration, did not even include women forced into sexual slavery in the category of victims entitled to such compensation and still does not recognize their legal victim status.

Notably, the Batavia Court Martial adjudicated a case involving the Japanese military’s exploitation of Dutch women as “Comfort Women.” This stood as the only trial that addressed perpetrators who abducted women for the purpose of forced prostitution among post-World War II war crime tribunals under international law.

Issues raised by the victims of the Japanese military in China - Many people recall the image of an innocent girl who was forcibly taken away by the Japanese military and brutally assaulted. China, at that time a battlefield, was one of the places where such damaging incidents frequently occurred. The Japanese military continuously used brutal violence against Chinese women during the war. They openly took away women to commit sexual abuse across the battlegrounds, occupied areas, as well as urban and rural areas.