Translated By: Noble,David

Notes, Bibliography and Index

This book clarifies the issue of the comfort women with a comprehensive discussion of the main points of contention, addressing Japan's wartime and postwar responsibility, patterns of military prostitution and sexual violence in Japan and other countries, retributive and restorative justice in ethics and law, women's rights and individual compensation in law and politics, the representation of victim's voices, the meaning of reconciliation, the role of national identity in reflecting the past, and Japan-Korea relations. International comparison of wartime military prostitution demonstrates the universality of wartime sexual abuse and patriarchal values while leaving room for further research on the nature of coercion in Japan's administration of the comfort stations. Examination of a series of Japanese efforts at postwar compensation highlights the distinctive nature of the comfort women issue, embedded within patriarchal values in both Japanese and Korean societies.Japan's efforts at moral atonement to former comfort women through the Asian Women's Fund reveal the challenges of reflecting diverse voices of victims in official policy as well as suggesting prospects for meaningful popular participation in a national atonement project. The development of the women's rights movement raises legal and political challenges concerning how to redress past wrongdoing against women. And finally, the enormous impact of the comfort women issue on overall diplomatic relations between Japan and Korea exposes the deep and still simmering issue of colonialism and the asymmetric understandings of the colonial past held by the two countries. While only a beginning for further exploration of these topics, this book also points to their broader contemporary relevance beyond the issues of the comfort women and bilateral Japan-Korea relations.

English