Portal:Human sexuality/Selected article/27
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 troops; 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, which damaged Japan's reputation in Asia for decades. 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 from Japanese officials have been criticized as insincere, and Japanese government officials have continued to deny the existence of comfort women.
Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with most historians settling somewhere in the range of 50,000–200,000; the exact numbers are still being researched and debated. (Full article...) (Full article...)