Trafficking is A Long Standing Crime – US Troop Use of Japan’s Trafficked Women 1945

Lys Anzia – WNN Features

Trafficking of women for forced sexual use is a long standing crime. The United States was also guilty of involvement in these acts immediately following World War II in Japan.

According to an April 25, 2007 Associated Press article about US involvement with Japanese brothels in 1945, by Eric Talmadge, “An Associated Press review of historical documents and records shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution.”

“The Americans also had full knowledge by then of Japan’s atrocious treatment of women in countries across Asia that it conquered during the war,” added Talmadge.

On the days of Japanese surrender to the United States after the devastation of World War II and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, records show that Japan’s Ibaraki Prefectural Police Department, the Kempeitai, which had been in charge of forced prostitution during the war, set up numerous “comfort stations” for US GIs by order of the office of Japan’s Ministry of Interior on August 18, 1945.

The Kempeitai were founded in 1881 as Japan’s military police force. They numbered up to 75,000 during the war and were the ongoing managers of the Japanese brothel system.

One brothel called Yasu-ura House “comfort station” in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture was set up immediately by the Japanese Kempetai and Japan’s RAA – the Recreation and Amusement Association using Japanese government funds. This brothel was used for US military men flooding Japan at the end of the war on August 18, 1945.

Numerous other brothels were also created.

At times, the brothels were very crowded with up to 600 men standing in line. The publicly accepted logic, used by Japan’s office of the Ministry of Interior for setting up the prostitution houses, was that a strong barrier between the foreign “winners of the war” and the “good” women of Japan had to be made to save “respected” regular women from the invaders.

In massive numbers women from the Philippines, Korea and China were shipped to “comfort stations” worldwide. Through this forced trafficking of women the continuing betrayal and severe suffering of the women in the brothels went on – even after the war was over.

“Twelve soldiers raped me in quick succession, after which I was given half an hour rest. Then twelve more soldiers followed. They all lined up outside the room waiting for their turn. I bled so much and was in such pain, I could not even stand up. The next morning, I was too weak to get up. . . I could not eat. I felt much pain, and my vagina was swollen. I cried and cried, calling my mother. I could not resist the soldiers because they might kill me. So what else could I do? Every day, from two in the afternoon to ten in the evening, the soldiers lined up outside my room and the rooms of the six other women there. I did not even have time to wash after each assault. At the end of the day, I just closed my eyes and cried. My torn dress would be brittle from the crust that had formed from the soldiers’ dried semen. I washed myself with hot water and a piece of cloth so I would be clean. I pressed the cloth to my vagina like a compress to relieve that pain and the swelling,” said Maria Rosa Henson, a former Filipina comfort woman, in Yuki Tanaka’s 2001 searing book, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation.

On landing in Japan, the overwhelming numbers of US troops demanding sexual service grew quickly causing Japan’s (RAA) Recreation and Amusement Association to use force and coercion to get greater and greater numbers of women for forced sex-use. Another “comfort station” brothel after Japan’s surrender was called Komachien, The Babe Garden. It quickly expanded in size from 38 to 100 women.

When the US Navy landed in Yokosuka Naval Yard, Japan, on Aug. 30 1945, Commander of the Third Fleet Naval Landing Force – US Navy Commander L.T. Malone set the ground rules for all military men going on shore. At that time the “comfort station” in Yokusuka was quickly being set in place for the incoming men by the Ministry of Interior’s office in Tokyo.

On landing, Cmdr. Malone wrote a memo to his men two days before the men stepped ashore stating, “We have been chosen, largely by luck, to represent our U.S. Navy in occupation of Tokyo. There were close to one quarter of a million officers and men in the THIRD Fleet to pick from and we got the nod. We are honored to have this opportunity to represent our Navy in this occupation. Many others will follow us in after we have squared things away but we make the initial impression and, mark you well, it will be one of the great first impressions of history.”

Today this “good” impression of history is being re-written so the truth can be told about the US use of trafficked women in Japan immediately following the war.

To see more of this story with video and special reports link to page two below > > >

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