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91-545: Deshamanya Radhika Coomaraswamy (born 17 September 1953) is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as an Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 2006 to 2012 . Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her to the position in April 2006. In 1994, she was appointed the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women —

182-460: A 1991 interview about how she was drafted into the "comfort women corps" in 1941: "When I was 17 years old, the Japanese soldiers came along in a truck, beat us [her and a friend], and then dragged us into the back. I was told if I were drafted, I could earn lots of money in a textile factory ... The first day I was raped and the rapes never stopped ... I was born a woman but never lived as

273-899: A Japanese army compound, and the conditions of the Korean comfort women. Documents were discovered verifying the Japanese Army as the funding agency for purchasing some comfort women. Su Zhiliang, a professor at Shanghai Normal University , examined the Japanese Kwantung Army's records in Manchuria (now Northeast China), which are housed at the Jilin Archives in China. The operations of the Japanese Military Police, who were in charge of overseeing

364-560: A civil servant and her maternal grandfather S. K. Wijeyaratnam was chairman of Negombo Urban Council . She has one elder brother, Indrajit Coomaraswamy . She is a graduate of the United Nations International School in New York City . She received her B.A. from Yale University , her J.D. from Columbia University , an LLM from Harvard University and honorary PhDs from Amherst College ,

455-579: A comfort women by the Japanese after she was tricked into becoming a comfort woman. She was lied to and told she was being taken to Tokyo to study there and instead sent to a Japanese military brothel in Flores to be raped. Over 20,000 Indonesian women reported they were raped by Japanese soldiers since 1993 after the Indonesian government asked Indonesian women to report if they were victims of Japanese rape. Each Javanese Indonesian comfort woman trafficked to

546-559: A cut. Your genitals swell and bruise. Damage to the womb and other internal organs can also be tremendous ... [B]eing used as a public dumping ground by those men left me with deep shame that I still feel in the pit of my stomach – it's like a hard, heavy, sick feeling that never entirely goes away. They saw not just my completely helpless, naked body, but they heard me beg, and cry. They reduced me to something low and disgusting that suffered miserably in front of them ... Even years later, it has taken tremendous courage for me to put these words on

637-542: A historical play drama called "Hayatie's life (Hayat Hayatie) when she was raped by the Japanese in Singapore. Another play called Wild Rice was also based on another Malay comfort woman who didn't tell her family in the 1980s how she was raped by the Japanese in the 1940s and sought to hide her humiliation from them. On 16-17 October 1992, in Nepal, Kathmandu, the "Conference of International  Investigation Committee on

728-533: A letter for her. However, her long suffering was left unremedied . The Malay woman thought that the UMNO party would demand the Japanese government apologize and pay reparations since she was a member of the UMNO but the UMNOF leadership refused to press the case. The Japanese forced ethnic Malay Muslim girls into becoming comfort women to be raped by Japanese soldiers. One of these Malay girls had her experience made into

819-620: A lieutenant is quoted as confessing to having organized a brothel and having used it himself. Another source refers to Tokkeitai members having arrested women on the streets and putting them in brothels after enforced medical examinations. On May 12, 2007, journalist Taichiro Kajimura announced the discovery of 30 Dutch government documents submitted to the Tokyo tribunal as evidence of a forced mass prostitution incident in 1944 in Magelang . The South Korean government designated Bae Jeong-ja as

910-505: A major issue was that no historian had examined whether the soldiers of the Indian National Army used comfort women, since there had been no investigation for it. Lebra wrote "None of those who have written on Bose's Indian national army has investigated whether, while they were trained by the Japanese army, they were permitted to share in the 'comfort' provided by thousands of kidnapped Korean young women held as sex slaves by

1001-555: A paper on comfort women in Malaysia who were forced to serve the Japanese military. She wrote that the Japanese targeted their comfort women recruitment form all ethnic groups and not just one in the occupied regions. The Malay Mustapha Yaakub, who was Youth International Bureau secretary for the UMNO called for Malaaysians who were victimized by Japanese soldiers such as comfort women to go out in public and talk about what happened in 1993. He received multiple letters including one known by

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1092-541: A pro-Japanese collaborator ( chinilpa ) in September 2007 for recruiting comfort women. In 2014, China produced almost 90 documents from the archives of the Kwantung Army on the issue. According to China, the documents provide ironclad proof that the Japanese military forced Asian women to work in front-line brothels before and during World War II. In June 2014, more official documents were made public from

1183-496: A rapid rate, making her estimates of 200,000-400,000 comfort women plausible, with the majority being Chinese women. Ikuhiko Hata , a professor of Nihon University , estimated the number of women working in the licensed pleasure quarter was fewer than 20,000 and that they were 40% Japanese, 20% Koreans, 10% Chinese, with others making up the remaining 30%. According to Hata, the total number of government-regulated prostitutes in Japan

1274-540: A station in Flores was raped by 23 Japanese men daily, 1 officer, 2 NCOS and 20 soldiers. They were expected to be raped by 100 men each week and received a ticket showing it from every one of them. The mass rapes committed by the Japanese against indigenous Javanese Indonesian Muslim women largely went unpunished since the Allied powers like the Dutch and Australians showed no interest in investigation or pressing charges against

1365-538: A substantial minority of the contractors in Korea were Japanese, the majority were Korean. In the Philippines during the Japanese occupation, around 1,000 Filipino women were made into comfort women. The victims were as young as 12 years old at the time of their enslavement. As many of the survivors recall, the garrisons or comfort stations/brothels were spread all over the Philippines. The garrisons were located from

1456-644: A total number of 400 Dutch girls were taken from the camps to become comfort women. Besides Dutch women, many Javanese were also recruited from Indonesia as comfort women, including around 1000 East Timorese women and girls who also used as sexual slaves. Most were adolescent girls aged 14–19 who had completed some education and were deceived through promises of higher education in Tokyo or Singapore. Common destinations of comfort women from Java included Burma, Thailand, and Eastern Indonesia. Interviews conducted with former comfort women also suggest that some women came from

1547-404: A victim of the incident, in 1990, Jan Ruff-O'Herne testified to a U.S. House of Representatives committee: Many stories have been told about the horrors, brutalities, suffering and starvation of Dutch women in Japanese prison camps. But one story was never told, the most shameful story of the worst human rights abuse committed by the Japanese during World War II: The story of the "Comfort Women",

1638-438: A woman ... I feel sick when I come close to a man. Not just Japanese men, but all men-even my own husband who saved me from the brothel. I shiver whenever I see a Japanese flag ... Why should I feel ashamed? I don't have to feel ashamed." Kim stated that she was raped 30–40 times a day, every day of the year during her time as a "comfort woman". Reflecting their dehumanized status, Army and Navy records where referring to

1729-593: The Battle of Saipan comfort women were among those who committed suicide by jumping off the cliffs of Saipan. In Burma, there were cases of Korean comfort women committing suicide by swallowing cyanide pills or being killed by having a hand grenade tossed into their dug-outs. During the Battle of Manila , when Japanese sailors ran amok and simply killed everyone, there were cases of comfort women being killed, though there does not seem to have been any systematic policy of killing comfort women. The Japanese government had told

1820-1209: The Government of Sri Lanka as a civil honour . It is awarded for " highly meritorious service ", and is conventionally used as a title or prefix to the recipient's name. Recipients [ edit ] 1986 P. R. Anthonis – surgeon and academic Gamani Corea – economist, civil servant and diplomat M. C. M. Kaleel – physician, social worker and politician Malage George Victor Perera Wijewickrama Samarasinghe Miliani Sansoni – Chief Justice of Ceylon Victor Tennekoon – Chief Justice of Ceylon 1987 Edwin Felix Dias Abeysinghe Neville Kanakeratne – diplomat V. Manicavasagar – Supreme Court Justice, Chancellor University of Jaffna Wijetunga Mudiyansela Tillekeratne 1988 Hector Wilfred Jayewardene – lawyer, member United Nations Commission on Human Rights Thambiah Sivagnanam 1989 Shiva Pasupati – Solicitor General of Sri Lanka , Attorney General of Sri Lanka 1990 Sepala Attygalle – Commander of

1911-828: The International Commission of Jurists quotes "estimates of historians of 100,000 to 200,000 women." Most of the women were from occupied countries, including Korea , China , and the Philippines . Women who were used for military "comfort stations" also came from Burma , Thailand , French Indochina , Malaya , Manchukuo , Taiwan (then a Japanese dependency), the Dutch East Indies , Portuguese Timor , Papua New Guinea (including some mixed race Japanese-Papuans ) and other Japanese-occupied territories. Stations were located in Japan , China ,

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2002-795: The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven , the University of Edinburgh , the University of Essex and the CUNY School of Law . She was also a student of the late United States Supreme Court Justice and pioneer feminist litigator Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Columbia. Coomaraswamy is a lawyer by training and formerly the Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission , is an internationally known human rights advocate who has worked as

2093-663: The Shanghai incident in 1932 as a response to wholesale rape of Chinese women by Japanese soldiers. Yasuji Okamura , the chief of staff in Shanghai, ordered the construction of comfort houses to prevent further rape. After the rapes of many Chinese women by Japanese troops during the Nanjing Massacre in 1937, the Japanese forces adopted the general policy of creating comfort stations in various places in Japanese occupied Chinese territory, "not because of their concern for

2184-646: The Tianjin Municipal Archives from the archival files of the Japanese government and the Japanese police during the periods of the occupation in World War II. Municipal archives from Shanghai and Nanjing were also examined. One conclusion reached was that the relevant archives in Korea are distorted. A conclusion of the study was that the Japanese Imperial government and the colonial government in Korea tried to avoid recording

2275-566: The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women (1994-2003). In her reports to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights , she has written on violence in the family, violence in the community, violence against women during armed conflict and the problem of international trafficking . A strong advocate on women's rights , she has intervened on behalf of women throughout

2366-414: The "comfort stations" in various parts of China and Java, were the subject of these records. Su concluded that the sources revealed that comfort women stations were ordered, supported, and managed by the Japanese military authorities. Documents were found in Shanghai that showed details of how the Japanese Army went about opening comfort stations for Japanese troops in occupied Shanghai. Documents included

2457-586: The "comfort women corps" were almost always virgins, it was felt that this was the best way to limit the spread of venereal diseases that would otherwise incapacitate soldiers and sailors. Ten Dutch women were taken by force from prison camps in Java by officers of the Imperial Japanese Army to become forced sex slaves in February 1944. They were systematically beaten and raped day and night. As

2548-690: The Argentine Supreme Court of Justice, states that the Japanese government aimed to prevent atrocities like the Rape of Nanking by confining rape and sexual abuse to military-controlled facilities, or stop incidents from leaking to the international press should they occur. She also states that the government wanted to minimize medical expenses on treating venereal diseases that the soldiers acquired from frequent and widespread rape, which hindered Japan's military capacity. Comfort women lived in sordid conditions, and were called "public toilets" by

2639-2626: The Army Nandadeva Wijesekera Badi-ud-din Mahmud – politician, Minister of Education Baku Mahadeva – civil servant Nanayakkara Wasam James Mudalige 1991 E. L. Senanayake – politician, Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka Montague Jayawickrama – politician, cabinet minister, governor K. W. Devanayagam – lawyer, politician, minister Nissanka Wijeyeratne – civil servant, politician Sivagamie Verina Obeyasekera Christopher Weeramantry Neville Ubesinghe Jayawardena Ivan Samarawickrema Chandirapal Chanmugam Abdul Caffoor Mohamed Ameer - Queen's Counsel , Attorney General of Sri Lanka 1992 Abdul Bakeer Markar – Politician Hewa Komanage Dharmadasa Ananda Weihena Palliya Guruge E. L. B. Hurulle Abdul Majeed Mohamed Sahabdeen Suppiah Sharvananda Linus Silva Nissanka Wijewardane 1993 Geoffrey Bawa – Architect C. A. Coorey Felix Stanley Christopher Perera Kalpage H. W. Thambiah Richard Udugama – Major General Ponna Wignaraja Noel Wimalasena 1994 Jayantha Kelegama Lalith Kotelawala – Businessman Nandadasa Kodagoda – Academic Godfrey Gunatilleke Arulanandam Yesuadiam Samuel Gnanam Nugegoda Gabadage Pablis Panditharatna Surendra Ramachandran Deraniyagalage Basil Ivor Pieris Samaranayake Siriwardhana 1996 Duleep Mendis – Sri Lanka national cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga – Sri Lanka national cricket captain 1998 Charitha Prasanna de Silva Ken Balendra – Businessman Doreen Winifred Wickramasinghe Tamara Kumari Illangaratne Elanga Devapriya Wickremanayake R. K. W. Goonesekera – Academic, Lawyer Vernon Mendis – Diplomat H. L. de Silva – Diplomat A. T. Kovoor – Academic Ranjit Abeysuriya – lawyer Duncan White – Olympic medalist Christopher Rajindra Panabokke W. D. Amaradeva – Music Director Chitrasena – Dancer 2005 Kamalika Priyaderi Abeyaratne William Alwis Mahesh Amalean – Engineer and industrialist Sohli E. Captain Radhika Coomaraswamy – Academic, Human Rights Activist, Under-Secretary-General of

2730-2511: The Central Bank of Sri Lanka J. B. Peiris – Senior Neurologist, Researcher and Pioneer of Neurology M. D. D. Peiris Denis Perera – Lieutenant General P. Ramanathan – Former Justice of the Supreme Court and Provincial Governor P. Deva Rodrigo Mano Selvanathan A. H. Sheriffdeen – Surgeon, academic and voluntary worker Roland Silva Bradman Weerakoon – Civil servant Kandekumara Hapudoragamage Jothiyarathna Wijayadasa Ray Wijewardene – Academic, Engineer 2007 James Peter Obeyesekere III – Politician and aviator 2008 Ramesh Mahendran 2017 Abbasally Akbar K. M. de Silva Tissa Devendra Colvin Goonaratna Amaradasa Gunawardana Devanesan Nesiah Nandadasa Rajapaksha Priyani Soysa Latha Walpola Mineka Presantha Wickramasingha Bhanuka Wimalasooriya 2019 Indrajit Coomaraswamy Ajith De Soyza Merrill J. Fernando Mohan Munasinghe Moragoda Christopher Walter Pinto Surath Wickremesinghe References [ edit ] ^ Gunawardena, Charles A. (2005). Encyclopedia Of Sri Lanka . Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. p. 254. ISBN   9781932705485 . ^ "National Awards" . President of Sri Lanka Secretariat . Retrieved 9 July 2013 . ^ "National Honours – 2017" . The Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka) . The Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka) . 21 March 2017 . Retrieved 21 March 2017 . ^ "President honours outstanding citizens at National Awards ceremony" . External links [ edit ] National Awards Conferred by His Excellency

2821-540: The Chinese victims of rape by Japanese soldiers but because of their fear of creating antagonism among the Chinese civilians." To staff the establishments, Japanese prostitutes were imported from Japan. Japanese women were the first victims to be enslaved in military brothels and trafficked across Japan, Okinawa, Japan's colonies and occupied territories, and overseas battlegrounds. According to Yoshiaki Yoshimi, comfort stations were established to avoid criticism from China,

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2912-776: The Commission for the reparations and apologies. 3,500 Malaysians sent letters to Mustapha Yaakub in the span of 4 months. The victims thought the UMNO Malaysian government was going to demand reparations and an apology from Japan so they had turned up en masse since a UMNO official was behind the push. Their hopes were dashed when the UMNO heads led by Najiz Razak forced Mustapha Yaakub to back down so Japan did not apologize or pay reparations to Malay rape vicitms. Indigenous Indonesian Muslim Javanese girls and women were taken as comfort women by Japanese soldiers and raped. One Indonesian seaman named Sukarno Martodiharjo (unrelated to

3003-577: The Crimes of War of Japan" took place with members attending from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Japan, Algeria and France. The UMNO (United Malays National Organization) Youth secretary Musapha Yakuub was a Malay delegate at the meeting and comfort women were one of the topics there. Mustapha then started his own investigation and documentation of all Japanese crimes committed from 1942-1945 when they occupied Malaysia against its people. Mustapha urged all victims to report to him

3094-416: The Imperial Japanese Army at its camps. This might have provided them with some insight into the nature of Japanese, as opposed to British, colonial rule, as well what might be in store for their sisters and daughters." Under the strain of the war effort, the military became unable to provide enough supplies to Japanese units; in response, the units made up the difference by demanding or looting supplies from

3185-401: The Imperial Japanese Army shows that the aims for facilitating comfort stations were: to reduce or prevent rape crimes by Japanese army personnel in an effort to prevent a worsening of anti-Japanese sentiment, to reduce venereal diseases among Japanese troops, and to prevent leakage of military secrets by civilians who were in contact with Japanese officers. Carmen Argibay , a former member of

3276-770: The Indonesian President Sukarno) witnessed Indonesian Muslim Javanese girls trafficked as comfort women by Japanese soldiers. Indonesian writer Pramudya Ananta Tur wrote about how Javanese Muslim Indonesian girls were taken as sex slaves by the Japanese and the fact that they were from high class prominent families and their fathers were tricked into sending them into prostitution since the Japanese lied to them and told them their daughters would study in Japan. These Javanese men were collaborations public servants, school headmasters, policemen, villages heads, subdistrict heads and other local chiefs. A Javanese Indonesian Muslim girl, Siti Fatimah recalled being raped as

3367-488: The International Human Rights of Women from 1996-2006. She has published, including two books on constitutional law and numerous articles on ethnic studies and the status of women. In 2014, Coomaraswamy was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as lead author on a Global Study on the implementation of UNSC resolution 1325, on women, peace and security. The Global Study will be presented to

3458-750: The Japanese colonists on Saipan that the Americans were cannibals, and so the Japanese population preferred suicide to falling into the hands of the Americans. It is possible that many of the Asian comfort women may also have believed this. British soldiers fighting in Burma often reported that the Korean comfort women whom they captured were astonished to learn that the British were not going to eat them. Ironically, given this claim, there were cases of starving Japanese troops cut off on remote Pacific islands or trapped in

3549-406: The Japanese for raping Indonesian women since the Dutch themselves had sexual abused and raped indigenous Javanese Indonesian women for centuries including using them as military prostitutes for Dutch soldiers so the Dutch did not view what the Japanese did to Indonesians as a crime but rather as a norm. The Japanese also destroyed tons of records related to Indonesian comfort women as they were losing

3640-602: The Japanese military executed Korean comfort women when they fled from losing battles with the Allied Forces. During the last stand of Japanese forces in 1944–45, comfort women were often forced to commit suicide or were killed. During World war II, at Chuuk Lagoon, 70 comfort women were killed prior to the expected American assault as the Navy mistook the American air raid as the prelude to an American landing while during

3731-456: The Japanese soldiers took her, "soldiers began to skin her father alive." This maltreatment left physical and emotional scars. Military doctors and medical workers frequently raped the women during medical examinations. One Japanese Army doctor, Asō Tetsuo, testified that the comfort women were seen as "female ammunition" and as "public toilets"—as literally just things to be used and abused—with some comfort women being forced to donate blood for

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3822-439: The Japanese warned the inmates that if anyone told what had happened to them, they and their family members would be killed. Several months later the O'Hernes were transferred to a camp at Batavia, which was liberated on August 15, 1945. Suki Falconberg, a comfort women survivor, shared her experiences: Serial penetration by many men is not a mild form of torture. Just the tears at the vaginal opening feel like fire applied to

3913-406: The Japanese. Yuki Tanaka states that local brothels outside of the military's reach had issues of security, since there were possibilities of spies disguised as workers of such private facilities. Japanese historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi further states that the Japanese military used comfort women to satisfy disgruntled soldiers during World War II and prevent military revolt. He said that, despite

4004-479: The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, Thailand, Burma, New Guinea, Hong Kong , Macau , and French Indochina. A smaller number of women of European origin were also involved, mostly from the Netherlands and Australia with an estimated 200–400 Dutch women alone, with an unknown number of other European women. According to State University of New York at Buffalo professor Yoshiko Nozaki and other sources,

4095-1921: The President of Sri Lanka v t e [REDACTED] Orders, decorations, and medals of Sri Lanka National honours Sri Lankabhimanya Deshamanya Deshabandu Veera Chudamani Vidya Jyothi Kala Keerthi Sri Lanka Sikhamani Vidya Nidhi Kala Suri Sri Lanka Thilaka Veera Prathapa Sri Lanka Mitra Vibhushana Sri Lanka Rathna Sri Lanka Ranjana Sri Lanka Ramya [REDACTED] Police awards and decorations Gallantry/Meritorious [REDACTED] Janadhipathi Police Weeratha Padakkama [REDACTED] Sri Lanka Police Weeratha Padakkama [REDACTED] Sri Lanka Police Vishishta Seva Padakkama Service [REDACTED] Sri Lanka Police Long Service Medal [REDACTED] Desha Putra Padakkama [REDACTED] Sewabhimani Padakkama [REDACTED] Sewa Padakkama [REDACTED] Sri Lanka Police First Aid Medal [REDACTED] Purna Bhumi Padakkama Campaign [REDACTED] Riviresa Campaign Services Medal [REDACTED] Northern Humanitarian Operations Medal [REDACTED] Eastern Humanitarian Operations Medal Anniversary [REDACTED] Ceylon Police Independence Medal [REDACTED] Janaraja Padakkama [REDACTED] President's Inauguration Medal [REDACTED] 50th Independence Anniversary Commemoration Medal [REDACTED] Sri Lanka Police 125th Anniversary Medal [REDACTED] 75th Independence Day Commemoration Medal Obsolete [REDACTED] Ceylon Police Long Service Medal [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Ceylon Police Medal Other honors and orders National Heroes Justice of

4186-546: The Robert S. Litvack Award from McGill University . In November 2005, in recognition of her service to the country and the world. Deshamanya Second-highest national honour of Sri Lanka Deshamanya දේශමාන්‍ය தேசமான்ய Awarded by [REDACTED] The Government of Sri Lanka Type Title of honor / Order of merit Eligibility Sri Lankan citizens Criteria Highly notable service to

4277-692: The Secretary-General and to the public in October, 2015, when the Security Council will conduct a High-level Review to assess progress at the global, regional and national levels in implementing resolution 1325 (2000). In January 2008, the United Nations requested that Coomaraswamy, as special representative for children in armed conflict, be allowed to observe the American military tribunal of child soldier Omar Khadr , but she

4368-661: The United Nations Lalith de Mel Rohan de Saram – Cellist Chandrananda de Silva Ashley de Vos – Architect Jayaratne Banda Dissanayake M. T. A. Furkhan D. Basil Goonesekera Cyril Herath – Inspector General of Police Asoka Kanthilal Jayawardhana A. S. Jayawarden – Sri Lankan economist and civil servant Harry Jayawardena – Businessman Nihal Jinasena – industrialist and sportsman Premasiri Khemadasa – Composer W. D. Lakshman Paddy Mendis – Air Chief Marshal Sunil Mendis – former Governor of

4459-534: The United States of America and Europe following the case of massive rapes between battles in Shanghai and Nanjing. As Japan continued military expansion, the military found itself short of Japanese volunteers, and turned to local populations—abducting and coercing women into serving as sex slaves in the comfort stations. Many women responded to calls to work as factory workers or nurses, and did not know that they were being pressed into sexual slavery . In

4550-533: The atrocities that the Japanese had done in Malaysia and wanted to force the Japanese government to pay reparations and apologize by bringing up comfort women and forced labor which he called "Cruel deeds" at the UN Human Rights Commission. Mustapha wanted to attend the May 1993 Austria, Vienna UN World Human Rights Conference and submit his report so that countries attacked by Japan could testify to

4641-525: The daughters of the gentry and the bureaucracy were spared from being sent into the "comfort women corps" unless they or their families showed signs of pro-independence tendencies, and the overwhelming majority of the Korean girls taken into the "comfort women corps" came from the poor. The Army and Navy often subcontracted the work of taking girls into the "comfort women corps" in Korea to contractors, who were usually associated in some way with organized crime groups that were paid for girls they presented. Though

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4732-510: The day and being sexually abused at night was also recounted by another Filipino Survivor Fedencia David, who was kidnapped by Japanese soldiers at age 14, who also remembered being forced to wash clothes and cook for the Japanese soldiers. At night, she was raped by as many as 5 to 10 Japanese soldiers. Along with being raped multiple times a day the women were subjected to separation from their families, often watching their families being murdered by Japanese soldiers. One survivor recounts that when

4823-584: The discovery of seven official documents in the archives of the Tokyo Trials, suggesting that Imperial military forces – such as the Tokkeitai (Naval military police) – forced women whose fathers attacked the Kenpeitai (Japanese Army military police) to work in front-line brothels in China, Indochina, and Indonesia. These documents were initially made public at the war crimes trial. In one of these,

4914-508: The early stages of World War II, Japanese authorities recruited prostitutes through conventional means. In urban areas, conventional advertising through middlemen was used alongside kidnapping. Middlemen advertised in newspapers circulating in Japan and in the Japanese colonies of Korea , Taiwan, Manchukuo , and China. These sources soon dried up, especially in metropolitan Japan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs resisted further issuance of travel visas for Japanese prostitutes, feeling it tarnished

5005-606: The first under this mandate. Her appointment marked the first time that violence against women was conceptualized as a political issue internationally. She co-founded the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES) in 1982. She was nominated to the Constitutional Council (Sri Lanka) as a civil representative on 10 September 2015. In 2017, after atrocities against the Rohingya people, she

5096-406: The general makeup of the total comfort women population, Korean women made up 51.8 percent, Chinese 36 percent and Japanese 12.2 percent. In 1997, Bruce Cumings , a historian of Korea, wrote that Japan had forced quotas to supply the comfort women program and that Korean men helped recruit the victims. Cumings stated that between 100,000 and 200,000 Korean girls and women were recruited. In Korea,

5187-745: The goal of reducing rape and venereal disease, the comfort stations did the opposite—aggravating rape and increasing the spread of venereal disease. Comfort women stations were so prevalent that the Imperial Army offered accountancy classes on how to manage comfort stations, which included how to determine the actuarial "durability or perishability of the women procured." In the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Japan's military closely regulated privately operated brothels in Manchuria. Comfort houses were first established in Shanghai after

5278-662: The government of Japan's archives, documenting sexual violence and women forced into sexual slavery, committed by Imperial Japanese soldiers in French Indochina and Indonesia. A 2015 study examined archival data which was previously difficult to access, partly due to the China-Japan Joint Communiqué of 1972 in which the Chinese government agreed not to seek any restitution for wartime crimes and incidents. New documents discovered in China shed light on facilities inside comfort stations operated within

5369-498: The homes of Japanese officers to serve one man as a sex slave rather than many men in a brothel. One such European woman, K'tut Tantri , of Scottish ancestry, wrote a book describing her ordeal. A Dutch government study described the methods used by the Japanese military to seize the women by force. It concluded that among the 200 to 300 European women found in the Japanese military brothels, "some sixty five were most certainly forced into prostitution". Others, faced with starvation in

5460-401: The illegal mobilization of comfort women. It was concluded that they burned most of the records immediately before the surrender; however, the study confirmed that some documents and records survived. Professor Su Jiliang concludes that during the seven-year period from 1938 to 1945, comfort women in the territory occupied by the Japanese numbered 360,000 to 410,000, among whom the Chinese were

5551-568: The image of the Japanese Empire. The military turned to acquiring comfort women outside mainland Japan, mostly from Korea and from occupied China. An existing system of licensed prostitution within Korea made it easy for Japan to recruit women in large numbers. Many women were tricked or defrauded into joining the military brothels. Based on false characterizations and payments—by Japanese or by local recruitment agents—which could help relieve family debts, many Korean girls enlisted to take

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5642-868: The island of Flores . After the war, many Javanese comfort women who survived stayed in the locations where they had been trafficked to and became integrated into local populations. Melanesian women from New Guinea were also used as comfort women. Local women were recruited from Rabaul as comfort women, along with some number of mixed Japanese-Papuan women born to Japanese fathers and Papuan mothers. One Australian Captain, David Hutchinson-Smith, also mentioned of some mixed-race, young Japanese-Papuan girls who were also conscripted as comfort women. A Papuan activist from Western New Guinea claimed an estimated 16,161 Papuan New Guinean comfort women were used by Japanese male soldiers during their occupation of New Guinea. In 1985, Japanese comfort woman survivor Shirota Suzuko (1921–1993) released her autobiography, detailing

5733-703: The issue of trafficking, the United States on women in prisons, Brazil on domestic violence , and Cuba on violence against women generally. Coomaraswamy was appointed Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission in May 2003. She has served as a member of the Global Faculty of the New York University School of Law . She also taught a summer course at New College , Oxford , every year on

5824-610: The job. Furthermore, the South East Asia Translation and Interrogation Center (SEATIC) Psychological Warfare Interrogation Bulletin No.2 states that a Japanese facility-manager purchased Korean women for 300 to 1000 yen depending on their physical characteristics, who then became his property and were not released even after completing the servitude terms specified in the contract. In northern Hebei province of China, Hui Muslim girls were recruited to "Huimin Girls' school" to be trained as entertainers, but then forced to serve as sex slaves. The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that

5915-427: The jugun ianfu, and how these women were forcibly seized against their will, to provide sexual services for the Japanese Imperial Army. In the "comfort station" I was systematically beaten and raped day and night. Even the Japanese doctor raped me each time he visited the brothel to examine us for venereal disease. In their first morning at the brothel, photographs of Ruff-O'Herne and the others were taken and placed on

6006-500: The jungles of Burma turning towards cannibalism, and there were at least several cases where comfort women in Burma and on Pacific islands were killed to provide food for the Imperial Japanese Army. According to an account by a survivor, she was beaten when she attempted to resist being raped. The women who were not prostitutes prior to joining the "comfort women corps", especially those taken in by force, were normally "broken in" by being raped. One Korean woman, Kim Hak-sun , stated in

6097-437: The largest group, about 200,000. Lack of official documentation has made estimating the total number of comfort women difficult. Vast amounts of material pertaining to war crimes, and the responsibility of the nation's highest leaders, were either destroyed or concealed on the orders of the Japanese government at the end of the war. Historians have arrived at various estimates by looking at surviving documentation, which indicates

6188-462: The locals. The military often directly demanded that local leaders procure women for the brothels along the front lines, especially in the countryside where middlemen were rare. When the locals were considered hostile in China, Japanese soldiers carried out the "Three Alls Policy" ("kill all, burn all, loot all") which included indiscriminately kidnapping and raping local civilians. On April 17, 2007, Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Hirofumi Hayashi announced

6279-540: The majority of the women were from Korea and China . Chuo University professor and historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi discovered an abundance of documentation and testimony proving the existence of 2,000 comfort women stations where approximately 200,000 Korean, Filipina, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Burmese, Dutch, Australian, and Japanese women, many of whom were teenagers, were confined and forced to perform sexual activities with Japanese troops. According to Qiu Peipei of Vassar College , comfort women were replaced with other women at

6370-402: The movement of comfort women always used the term "units of war supplies". In the Philippines according to the recounts of Filipino survivors Narcisa Claveria, who was enslaved for 18 months at the age of 13, during the day the women were forced to cook, clean, and do laundry. At night the Japanese soldiers raped and abused the women. The story of the comfort women doing household chores during

6461-460: The nation Status Currently constituted Statistics First induction 1986 Last induction 2019 Precedence Next (higher) Sri Lankabhimanya Next (lower) Deshabandu Deshamanya ( Sinhala : දේශමාන්‍ය , romanized:  Dēshamāṉya ; Tamil : தேசமான்ய , romanized:  Tēcamāṉya ; Pride of the Nation) is the second-highest national honour of Sri Lanka awarded by

6552-440: The need to protect Japan's image. In many cases, women were lured by false job openings for nurses and factory workers. Others were also lured by the promises of equity and sponsorship for higher education. A significant percentage of comfort women were minors. Given that prostitution in Japan was pervasive and organized, it was logical to find military prostitution in the Japanese armed forces. Military correspondence within

6643-479: The northern region of Cagayan Valley to the Davao region in the south. During the initial invasion of Dutch East Indies , Japanese soldiers raped many Indonesian and European women and girls. The Kenpeitai established the comfort women program to control the problem. The Kenpeitai forced and coerced many interned women to serve as prostitutes, including several hundred European women. A few of these chose to live in

6734-801: The peace Honors by year 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1996 1998 2005 2007 2008 2014 2017 2019 2023 Prizes, medals, and awards Military awards and decorations Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deshamanya&oldid=1253884868 " Categories : Deshamanya Civil awards and decorations of Sri Lanka Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Articles containing Sinhala-language text Articles containing Tamil-language text Comfort women Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with most historians settling somewhere in

6825-562: The pseydonym P who was interviewed by Nakahara. However, Najib Tun Razak , the head of UMNOF Youth and Defence Minister banned Mustapha Yaakub from talking about the Malay rape victims at the 1993 Austria United Nations Human Rights Conference. Nakahara wrote about an ethnic Malay comfort woman who was raped and forced into sex slavery at a comfort woman station by Japanese soldiers. The Malay rape victim said " I worked like an animal, they did to me just as they liked. I had to obey their orders until

6916-635: The range of 50,000–200,000; 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 comfort stations, however, had the reverse effect of what was intended—it increased the amount of rapes and increased the spread of venereal diseases. The first victims were Japanese women, some who were recruited by conventional means, and some who were recruited through deception or kidnapping. The military later turned to women in Japanese colonies, due to lack of Japanese volunteers and

7007-550: The ratio of soldiers in a particular area to the number of women and replacement rates of the women. Most academic researchers and media typically point to Yoshiaki's estimate as the most probable range of the numbers of women involved. This figure contrasts with the inscriptions on monuments in the United States such as those in New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and California, which state the number of comfort women as "more than 200,000". The BBC quotes "200,000 to 300,000", and

7098-411: The refugee camps, agreed to offers of food and payment for work, the nature of which was not completely revealed to them. Some of the women also volunteered in hopes protecting the younger ones. The women forced into prostitution may therefore be much higher than the Dutch record have previously indicated. The number of Dutch women that were sexually assaulted or molested were also largely ignored. It

7189-423: The sufferings she and other women endured as comfort women. More than 2,000 Taiwanese women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military; as of 2020, only two were still believed to be alive. Yoshiaki Yoshimi notes that more than half of Taiwanese comfort women were minors. In 2023 the last surviving Taiwanese comfort woman died. The Japanese academic Nakahara Michiko from Waseda University wrote

7280-424: The surrender ". Nakahara said " Her daughter told me her mother has nightmares and cries in her sleep. She used to wander aimlessly after the bad dreams ... She told me herself that she begged God for pardon for the sins she had committed. She still suffers from her memory and her feeling of having sinned. It seems nobody in her village ever told her that it was not her sin at all ... She had asked her daughter to write

7371-955: The title of Deshamanya , a national honour. She has also received the International Law Award of the American Bar Association , the Human Rights Award of the International Human Rights Law Group , the Bruno Kreisky Award of 2000, the Leo Ettinger Human Rights Prize of the University of Oslo , Archbishop Oscar Romero Award of the University of Dayton , the William J. Butler Award from the University of Cincinnati , and

7462-486: The treatment of wounded soldiers. At least 80% of the comfort women were Korean, who were assigned to the lower ranks, while Japanese and European women went to the officers. For example, Dutch women captured in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) were reserved exclusively for the officers. Korea is a Confucian country where premarital sex was widely disapproved of, and since the Korean teenagers taken into

7553-519: The veranda which was used as a reception area for the Japanese personnel who would choose from these photographs. Over the following four months the girls were raped and beaten day and night, with those who became pregnant forced to have abortions. After four harrowing months, the girls were moved to a camp at Bogor , in West Java, where they were reunited with their families. This camp was exclusively for women who had been put into military brothels, and

7644-640: The war so the true number of Indonesian comfort women is unknown. The first president of Indonesia, Sukarno was a collaborator of the Japanese and recruited Indonesian girls as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. It is estimated that most of the survivors became infertile because of the multiple rapes or venereal diseases contracted following the rapes. Women and girls were stripped of their agency and dehumanized as "'female ammunition', 'public toilets', or 'military supplies'". In order to help injured Japanese soldiers receive treatment, some of them were even forced to donate blood. Even though every victim's testimony

7735-461: The world seeking clarification from governments in cases involving violence against women. She also compiled a report on " comfort women ", citing Seiji Yoshida 's remark (his testimony was later judged to be a fabrication), and has conducted field visits to Japan and Korea on the problem of " comfort women ", Rwanda , Colombia , Haiti and Indonesia with regard to violence against women in war time, Poland , India , Bangladesh and Nepal on

7826-604: Was appointed a Member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar . Coomaraswamy was born on 17 September 1953 in Colombo , Ceylon . She was the younger daughter of civil servant Rajendra Coomaraswamy (Roving Raju) and his wife Wijeyamani. Her father’s occupation at the United Nations meant that her childhood was spent in New York . Her paternal grandfather C. Coomaraswamy was

7917-572: Was denied entrance. In May 2011, Coomaraswamy gave a lecture entitled "Children and Armed Conflict: The International Response" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series. In November 2011, Coomaraswamy gave a lectured entitled "Human Rights: Impact of Armed Conflict on Children" through Monmouth University's Institute for Global Understanding's United Nations Academic Impact Lecture Series. The President of Sri Lanka conferred on her

8008-572: Was not until individuals and groups such as the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts began advocating for victims of the Japanese occupation that the plight of Dutch comfort women entered the collective conscience. As well as being raped and sexually assaulted every day and night, the Dutch girls lived in constant fear of beatings and other physical violence. J.F. van Wagtendonk and the Dutch Broadcast Foundation estimated

8099-471: Was only 170,000 during World War II. Others came from the Philippines, Taiwan, the Dutch East Indies , and other Japanese-occupied countries and regions. Some Dutch women, captured in Dutch colonies in Asia, were also forced into sexual slavery. In further analysis of the Imperial Army medical records for venereal disease treatment from 1940, Yoshimi concluded that if the percentages of women treated reflected

8190-504: Was unique, they all shared commonalities: they all experienced severe and brutal physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. They were repeatedly beaten and forced to perform sexual service with 10 men on normal days and up to 40 men on days after combat. Sufficient food, water, proper housing, toilets, and washing facilities were not provided to the women, and the extent of medical care was restricted to treating sexually transmitted diseases, sterilization, and terminating pregnancies. Torture

8281-481: Was used against women who attempted to flee or refused to comply with the troops' demands. In addition, threats were made to the families of girls who attempted suicide. Since comfort women were forced to travel to the battlefields with the Japanese Imperial Army, many comfort women perished as Allied forces overwhelmed Japan's Pacific defense and annihilated Japanese encampments. In certain cases,

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