The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War [Paperback]

George Hicks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1997

"The most extensive record available in English of the ugly story."—Elisabeth Rubinfein, New York Newsday

Over 100,000 women across Asia were victims of enforced prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II. Until as recently as 1993 the Japanese government continued to deny this shameful aspect of its wartime history. George Hicks's book is the only history in English regarding this terrible enslavement of women.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

One of the ravages of war has always been rape, but in the 1930s and '40s the Imperial Japanese Forces made it systematic, forcing thousands of women into sexual slavery for their soldiers at highly organized "comfort stations." Drawn mostly from Korea (which was then ruled by Japan), the "comfort women" who tell their horrific stories in this book were shipped to the front lines and all over the war zones, often arriving in the same shipments with munitions and food. Like those staples, their sexual services were intended to keep an army working and alive; a common superstition among the troops was the belief that sex before battle could magically ward off injury. This searing, painful chapter in history was uncovered in part by a Japanese journalist, who came across photos of the women in classified documents. --Francesca Coltrera

From Publishers Weekly

Most categories of atrocity committed by Japanese troops during WWII were prosecuted at the 1946 Tokyo war-crimes trials. One major category was ignored, however: the thousands of women, mostly Korean, who were coerced into sexual slavery for the pleasure of the Imperial Army. Hicks (Hong Kong Countdown) begins his stark report with a historical survey of wartime sexual exploitation of women, then narrows the focus to the "comfort women" system developed by the Japanese. The copious testimony of victims is shockingly graphic. The author reviews the progress of a class-action suit brought by surviving comfort women in Tokyo District Court in 1991: the Japanese government has admitted complicity, but no apology or compensation has been tendered. This significant addition to "the poor record of mankind to womankind, especially in war," properly approaches the subject as a human-rights issue tied to the rise of feminism in Asia. Photos.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 17, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393316947
• ISBN-13: 978-0393316940
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,121 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #88 in Books > History > Asia > Japan

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

63 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Difficult Read..., May 11, 2002

By 

Daitokuji31 (Black Glass) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War (Paperback)

... but one that folks do need to read. This book was written back in the year 1994 when the horrific legacy of the comfort women was almost unknown to the public at large. Now 8 years later the world is better informed thanks to such authors as Nora Okja Keller.

Hicls did a wonderful ob writing and researching this book. He starts off with a general history of prostitution throughout war, and also a histoty of the attrocties aimed at women during war. He then gives a good overview of how the comfort stations were set up throughout the japanese dominated parts of Asia. He goes into detail of how the army, navy, government, and private folks set up the comfort stations, how professional prostitutes joined the comfort stations. How young girls mainly from Korea, but also from other countries such as Taiwan, the Philipines, Indonesia, and others were tricked o become comfort women with promises of money and food.

Hicks' book is full o interviews with comfort women so the reader gets first hand accounts of what life was like in a Comfort Station. How the women were treated, how many men each woman or girl has to service in a single day, and living conditions of the comfort women.

The last 100 pages or so of the book deals with the various groups who were determined to get an apology and monetary compensation out of the Japanese government. It took a very long time just to get the Japanese to admit that the Korean comfort women were not all willingly becoming prostitutes, but that corcion was used instead. good. but hard book to read

76 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-researched analysis, May 6, 2002

By 

Janice (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War (Paperback)

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the World War II atrocities commited by the Japanese Imperial Army. Most scholarly literatures dealt with the Holocaust, or the massacres committed by both the German and Japanese army. There was little literature on the forced prostitution or the rape of Asian women during World War II. Hicks gives a very detailed analysis of the Comfort Women, in parts of East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Japanese prostitutes were initially recruited to provide "services" to the Japanese army but that proved insufficient as the war expanded and the number of soldiers increased. Soon, the Imperial Army began to employ South Korean prostitutes but that proved insufficient too. Soon, young women, from South Korea, and other Asian countries, such as Malaysia, were coerced, or kidnapped to become sex slaves to the Army. They were sometimes lead into believing that they would work in factories where they could earn decent livings but only to realize (after they had left homes) later, that they would be "serving" these men, sometimes, 10-30 times a day.

The most gruesome part of the book was the personal accounts of these young women. They ranged from 12-18 years old, and one lady, Madame X from Malaysia was gang raped in front of her family before being transported to a comfort station where she had to serve a lot of men. These women, faced the danger of disease, malnutrition or just the possibility of being killed at the battlefields. If they refused to perform, they would be severely beaten and sometimes killed. Sometimes, the army would also arranged for them to perform sex at the frontlines, where the pillboxes were transformed into comfort rooms. One would think that everything would be back to normal after the war had ended. After the war, these women had to bear the psychological effects of the war. Some were terrified of men and sex and most were unable to reproduce.

This is a well-researched book, that provides insights into the lives of these comfort women. It shows the brutality of the Japanese Imperial Army and how these women suffered both physically and psychologically.

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Women's lives in a war zone., September 10, 2003

By 

Su-Gon Lee (Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War (Paperback)

¡° The Comfort Women¡± written by George Hicks portrays how the war can bring down women¡¯s right to the bottom line. They were fed to survive, but other than that, they were like a disposable thing. They were sent to the war zone with the food and cloths for the Japanese soldiers. They were sent to the war zone to provide sexual comfort to the soldier.
In the book, the author contained several comfort women¡¯s stories too. The speaker¡¯s pain will touch your heart, and live with you for a long time. Those women are who survived from the World War II and make their way back home. However, they were not able to overcome of the horror until now. Their shocking stories in the war zone and their lives after the war are no similar to any other women¡¯s who suffered from a war.
There were 200.000 women who were taken away to the war, and only less than 200 women got back. Last of them were buried in the war field. After half century later, most of them died of old age. The remained victims¡¯, of the Japan¡¯s brutal sexual assault, last word are in this book. We should read and remember their pain. Thus, nothing like this won¡¯t happen again.