Comfort Women: True or False?

[TokyoBayer]

@md2000

The Koreans, particularly IIRC were a possession of Japan for several decades. They were certainly not regarded as equals by Japanese; they are considered an even lower form of life than the Chinese. Koreans who have lived in Japan for generations do not qualify for citizenship, IIRC. With that attitude, should you be surprised that press-ganging of such women into brothels was seen as acceptable behaviour when the morale of the imperial army was at stake?

My bolding.

Bullshit. Your statements are categorically false.

First, you are completely wrong about Koreans not qualifying for citizenship. They are, and many do. Others do not for various reasons, but it is not because they are restricted from doing so. This is a site to fight ignorance. Please do not spread it.

Certainly, there is discrimination by many in Japan against other races, particularly non-white foreigners. Many people do not like Koreans and many Zainichi Koreans have suffered from discrimination, some small and some large.

However, you cannot say that they are held to be a lower form of life by Japanese in general. That is completely false.

After Japan took Korea as a colony, one thing they did was to force assimilation, making Koreans take Japan names and speak Japanese. While they discriminated against them, they did not consider them "lower forms of life.

Discrimination against Koreans and other foreigners is lessening over time. What was acceptable 75 years ago is no longer the case. You cannot use false information to support a racist rant.

There was a lot of ugliness about what happened in the war, and the horrible things the Japanese did. There is no mistake about it.

However, by employing easily disproven absurdities, it detracts from any legitimacy in the argument.

@md2000

Koreans in Japan - Wikipedia
the truth is a bit complex:

Again, bullshit. You stated something which is false and when called on it then you are trying to muddy the water.

So some were Japanese citizens, but the Japanese did whatever they could to prevent the Koreans from becoming integrated into japan, including not providing citizenship.

From your own cite:

Zainichi today have established a stable presence in Japan after years of activism. Through Mintohren, community support by Zainichi organizations (Mindan, Chongryon, among others), other minority groups (Ainu, Burakumin, Ryūkyūans, Uilta,[dubious – discuss] Nivkhs and others), and sympathetic Japanese, they have improved the social atmosphere for Zainichi in Japan. There are also Koreans living in Japan who try to present themselves as Japanese to avoid discrimination.[24] Most younger Zainichi now speak only Japanese, go to Japanese schools, work for Japanese firms and increasingly now marry Japanese. Most naturalization occurs among the young during the period when they seek formal employment or marriage. Those who have already established their life often choose to retain their South Korean or Joseon nationality as part of their heritage.

Zainichi Koreans are allowed to become citizens.

Again, yes there was discrimination in the past. There still is some today, but it’s lessening and it is not how you are characterizing it.

[Quartz]

There’s an article in today’s Telegraph about the Korean Comfort Women.

[AK84]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

It’s worth noting, now the subject has been bumped anyway, that AFAICT the dispute over comfort women is not so much over whether they existed altogether but over whether and to what extent they were 1) forced into sex slavery 2) by the Japanese military. The alternative view apparently maintains that 1) some of these women were willing participants, and 2) the system was run by private actors with the quiet acquiesence of the Japanese military.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/asia/south-korea-comfort-women-park-yu-ha.html?_r=0

The problem is that wartime make regular notions of “consent” and “willinglly” harder to implement. Is it really willing if saying no means a rifle butt to the face or perhaps less viciously; starvation and displacement. Is it really forced when by starting a relationship with an enemy solider is motivated by a need to eat? And get protection?

The cynic in me states that the reason why a settlement has been reached is that most survivors are dead; unlike when this thread was fresh; hell back in 2001 most of my own WW2 serving reletives were alive and healthy, all are dead now.

One of them, who served in the British Indian Army in N Africa and Italy once told me that in wartime you do things you would never imagine otherwise and everyone in that war did somethings which they rather not bring up afterwards.

[AK84]

@aruvqan

I don’t know many women who would volunteer to be prostitutes without receiving remuneration at the time … and nobody seems to be willing to claim the women were handed money which they were able to keep a significant portion of. And I know even fewer teen aged girls who think prostitution is the exact career choice they are eager for …

Shelter…food, (relative) safety. Much more important than money in wartime don’t you think. (I am not saying that the women were not forced; just that the lack of money was not evidence either way).

On this issue I read an article about Germany in the last few months of the war. Apparently the most popular currency at the time was sex…and cigerettes. Make of that what you will.

[Isilder]

@Richox

Bolding mine. This seems a bit inflammatory and unlikely in the modern world stage. Got a cite? One directly disagreeing article suggests this:

Many angles to acquiring Japanese citizenship - The Japan Times

Oh no it does not.
What it does say is that for the set of prospective migrants, who applied for a visa with the explicit “to become a citizen later” intention condoned by government, 99% of their applications are approved.
Basically, this is the 2nd half of the step, the first step is crucial, to get a long term visa that will allow conversion to citizen… They dont use this name, but you could call it “initial application to become citizen” … visa given to only select few, based on family reuniting or marraige … then of those who stay long enough, “final application to become citizen” success 99% of the time.

See here. It discusses getting the “visa that will alow becoming a citizen later”.

Japan's 'no immigration principle' looking as solid as ever

“Japan does not accept migrants. Indeed, the M-word (imin in Japanese) is markedly absent in legal, media and popular discourse, where it is replaced by euphemisms such as “entrants” and “foreign workers.””

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@AK84

The problem is that wartime make regular notions of “consent” and “willinglly” harder to implement. Is it really willing if saying no means a rifle butt to the face or perhaps less viciously; starvation and displacement. Is it really forced when by starting a relationship with an enemy solider is motivated by a need to eat? And get protection?

But if you define those things as coercion then a lot of what people do during wartime is coerced, and much of what they do during peacetime as well.

[TokyoBayer]

@Isilder

Oh no it does not.
What it does say is that for the set of prospective migrants, who applied for a visa with the explicit “to become a citizen later” intention condoned by government, 99% of their applications are approved.

And all of this is completely irrelevant to the discussion of the possibility / impossibility of Japanese citizenship for Zainichi Koreans, i.e., long-term Korean residents of Japan who trace their roots to Korea under Japanese rule.