Documenting War Atrocities Against Women: Newly Discovered Japanese Military Files in Jilin Provincial Archives

Abstract

Since the “comfort women”1 redress movement arose in the late 1980s, history revisionists in Japan have continuously denied the forcible drafting of hundreds of thousands of “comfort women” and the torture these women suffered at the hands of the Imperial Japanese forces. Despite ample historical materials and victims’ testimonies confirming the crimes, Japanese officials insist that no evidence has been found to prove the existence of the sexual slavery in the Japanese military. At the same time, the Japanese government continues supporting efforts to remove the “comfort women” memorials and information concerning the issue in history textbooks. Facing the steadfast revisionist campaigns, Chinese researchers have put great effort into archival research in recent years and unearthed new evidence for the Imperial Japanese military’s direct involvement in setting up the “comfort women” system. This paper discusses the dedicated work and research findings of the Jilin Provincial Archives.2 These findings show undeniably that the “comfort women” system was implemented by the Japanese nation-state to further its aggression in Asia; that women from Japan and its colony were drafted into the “comfort stations” under Japan’s “National Mobilization Law;” that a large number of Chinese women in occupied areas were enslaved in the Japanese military “comfort stations;” and that the Japanese military authorities had purposely concealed information regarding the “comfort women” even before the war ended.