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. 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 s. Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with most historians settling somewhere in the range of 20,β,; [ 12 ] the exact numbers are still being researched and debated. Originally, the brothels were established to provide soldiers with a sexual outlet, to reduce wartime rape and the spread of venereal diseases.
The first victims were Japanese women, some of whom were recruited by conventional means, and others who were recruited through deception or kidnapping. The military later turned to women in Japanese colonies, due to lack of Japanese volunteers and the need to protect Japan's image.
Given that prostitution in Japan was pervasive and organized, it was logical to find military prostitution in the Japanese armed forces. In the Russo-Japanese War of β, Japan's military closely regulated privately operated brothels in Manchuria.
Comfort houses were first established in Shanghai after the Shanghai incident in as a response to wholesale rape of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers. As Japan continued military expansion, the military found itself short of Japanese volunteers, and turned to local populationsβabducting and coercing women into serving as sex slaves in the comfort stations. In the early stages of World War II, Japanese authorities recruited prostitutes through conventional means.
