Human Rights A Day

Sex Slaves denied compensation by Japan’s Supreme Court.During World War II, the Japanese Imperial Army held approximately 200,000 women as sex slaves to service Japanese soldiers. Most of the women, aged 12 to 21, were Chinese and Korean, although many women came from Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Japan. The military set up “comfort stations” throughout Japanese war territories and researchers estimate there were 160 in Shanghai alone. These girls and women were forced into sex with up to 50 men per day and those that survived were badly beaten and unable to have children. They lived silently with the horrible shame until in the early 1990s, the South Korean government urged them to come forward. In 1993, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary acknowledged that the military had been involved in forcing some women into prostitution. The government considered this an apology, but the victims and their families did not. Some of the women became more strident in wanting an official apology from Japan’s Parliam