Seoul Comfort Women Memorial

Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term comfort women is a translation of the Japanese ianfu (慰安婦), a euphemism that literally means "comforting, consoling woman". During World War II, Japanese troops forced hundreds of thousands of women from Australia, Burma, China, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, East Timor, New Guinea and other countries into sexual enslavement for Japanese soldiers; however, the majority of the women were from Korea. Many women died due to brutal mistreatment and sustained physical and emotional distress. After the war, Japan denied the existence of comfort women, refusing to provide an apology or appropriate restitution. After numerous demands for an apology and the revelation of official records showing the Japanese government's culpability, the Japanese government began to offer an official apology and compensation in the 1990s. However, apologies have been criticized as insincere by victims, advocacy groups, and scholars. Many Japanese government officials have continued to either deny or minimize the existence of comfort women. The Japanese government admits that girls and women suffered, but denies evidence that they were taken against their will during wartime. Estimates vary on the number of women, with most historians settling somewhere in the range of 20,000–200,000; the exact numbers are still being researched and debated reflecting differences in archival evidence and post war documentation. The brothels were originally established with the stated intent of providing soldiers with a controlled sexual outlet to reduce wartime rape and the spread of venereal diseases.