and the truth shall make you free.

 say that Japanese army made Korean women work as sex slaves by force, or Japanese army kidnapped Korean women by force to work. However, there is no evidence or proof at all about this.

During the war, there were women who worked as prostitutes in the war camps all over the world and it was the case of the Japanese army.

However, these things were done as private businesses with the permission from the authority and were not run by the army.

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In those days, the Japanese army was most concerned about their soldiers not committing any war crimes at that place.

If the soldiers attack women in the local area, the anti-Japan feeling would rise.

Therefore, the Japanese army gave permission to the private prostitute business. There was no motive for the Japanese army to provoke the feeling of the local people.

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Until 1965, ‘Comfort women’ was not made an issue at all anywhere.
In 1989, there was a false rumor that there was a prostitute hunting in Jejudo island. At that time, a newspaper reporter made an investigation there. They introduced a testimony by a 85 year old woman, and she said, ‘If as many as 15 women had been taken away as prostitutes, it must be a big scandal in the village of 250 inhabitants. But  there was not such an incident at that time in that village.’ And that made it evident that the rumor was invention.

One instance shows all the rest. There is not any objective proof.

 A woman who said that she was an ex- military prostitute testifies but it is well known that her claims are so changeable and not reliable. It is in the level that they may decide that there is not reliability in her testimony and they may reject it, if it is a court.

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 Even now Korea is known for exporting prostitutes in the world. In those days also there were so many people who were engaged in the sex businesses. Therefore, there was no reason why the Japanese army had to take such risk to bring women by force.

A survey by YMCA in 1989 says that Prostitution in South Korea is 5% of GDP.

This photograph shows a part of a TV program showing that 90 % of the prostitutes who are arrested in L.A. are Koreans and 5% of Korean GDP is occupied by prostitutes.

As in the official document of the U.S. which investigated the military prostitutes, they reported that it was just a prostitution which was done in the war camps according to the investigation of the American army.

When they made Japan-Republic of Korea Basic Relations Treaty (Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea) in 1965, Korea investigated the history of the past for details, because the more they exposed the evil Japan committed, the more money they would get. However, they did not find this problem of military prostitution at that time.

This is abnormal. If they had not brought up this issue at all in that investigation, it can be inferred that that was not a fact.

The Japanese army was known for highest discipline in the world in those days. Therefore, even in the area of prostitution in the war camp, there was hygiene and health management. But the fact that the Japanese army did this management does not mean that the Japanese army made the women work by force.

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When this kind of statement is done, there might be people who blame Japan, quoting the comfort women incident which

happened in Semarang in Indonesia.

This was an incident when Japanese chief soldiers took women from the prison camp to the military brothel in Semarang by force and make them work as prostitutes and rape themin February in1944.

This was truly bad and wrong, but their boss who noticed this happening closed the brothel down and punished the one who

was responsible. In short, this incident shows that there were evil officers and soldiers in the army, but Japan had not

approved of such a thing as a national policy.

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There were 3 stages until it came to be considered as a truth.

1) In 1989, Seiji Yoshida insisted that there was military prostitute hunting in his book.

2) Asashi newspaper reported as if it were a fact about the claim made by Seiji Yoshida.

3) The foreign ministry Youhei Kouno at that time made a comment that sounded like  he recognized it as a fact.

About 1), a Korean journalist of the local newspaper in Jejudo island investigated it, they found out that it was total invention.

Also Seiji Yoshida himself recognized that it was a fabrication article in 1996.

About 2), Asahi Newspaper corrected the content of the article in 2014, and they apologized that the article was not the truth. This unusual event has become a big topic in Japan.

About 3) About the comment of the foreign minister, Korean lobby must have worked a lot for this, because he seemed to believe the testimony of the military prostitution without investigating about the evidence at all.

In short, there is no evidence or proof about the military prostitutes except for the comment that the Japanese government made seemed to recognize it as a fact.

Yohei Kohno, who damaged Japan’s national benefits greatly, was famous for flattering to China, who made a statement that Japan was responsible for the comfort women problem, without investigating sufficiently.

When he was on the way to Bangkok, Thailand, in order to attend a conference of foreign ministers, his airplane had to land in Taiwan for emergency because of the influence of typhoon. At that time, he was the only person staying inside the airplane all night without getting off the airplane when all the rest of the passengers got off. He did such a unnatural behavior in order to judge China’s feeling as China did not recognize Taiwan as a nation.

Afterwards when he met a minister of China, he reported that he had not landed in Taiwan proudly, but that Chinese minister reprimanded him saying that it is all right to land in there in case of emergency.

H）About this issue, Michael Yong, American journalist made an explanation in the article called ‘Were Korean Men cowards during World War II?