US condemns Japan for use of "comfort women" during WW II -- now it turns out US occupation troops u

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TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to

provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel:

After its surrender -- with tacit approval from the U.S. occupation

authorities -- Japan set up a similar "comfort women" system for

American GIs.

An Associated Press review of historical documents and records shows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.

Tens of thousands of women were employed to provide cheap sex to U.S.

troops until the spring of 1946, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur shut the

brothels down.

The documents show the brothels were rushed into operation as American

forces poured into Japan beginning in August 1945.

"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the

occupation troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki

Prefectural Police Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of

Tokyo. "The strategy was, through the special work of experienced

women, to create a breakwater to protect regular women and girls."

The orders from the Ministry of the Interior came on August 18, 1945,

one day before a Japanese delegation flew to the Philippines to

negotiate the terms of their country's surrender and occupation.

The Ibaraki police immediately set to work. The only suitable facility

was a dormitory for single police officers, which they quickly

converted into a brothel. Bedding from the navy was brought in, along

with 20 comfort women. The brothel opened for business September 20.

Brothel was 'elbow to elbow'

"As expected, after it opened it was elbow to elbow," the history

says. "The comfort women ... had some resistance to selling themselves

to men who just yesterday were the enemy, and because of differences

in language and race, there were a great deal of apprehensions at

first. But they were paid highly, and they gradually came to accept

their work peacefully."

Police officials and Tokyo businessmen established a network of

brothels under the auspices of the Recreation and Amusement

Association, which operated with government funds. On August 28, 1945,

an advance wave of occupation troops arrived in Atsugi, just south of

Tokyo. By nightfall, the troops found the RAA's first brothel.

"I rushed there with two or three RAA executives, and was surprised to

see 500 or 600 soldiers standing in line on the street," Seiichi

Kaburagi, the chief of public relations for the RAA, wrote in a 1972

memoir. He said American MPs were barely able to keep the troops under

control.

Though arranged and supervised by the police and civilian government,

the system mirrored the comfort stations established by the Japanese

military abroad during the war.

Kaburagi wrote that occupation GIs paid upfront and were given tickets

and condoms. The first RAA brothel, called Komachien -- The Babe

Garden -- had 38 women, but due to high demand that was quickly

increased to 100. Each woman serviced from 15 to 60 clients a day.

American historian John Dower, in his book "Embracing Defeat: Japan in

the Wake of WWII," says the charge for a short session with a

prostitute was 15 yen, or about a dollar, roughly the cost of half a

pack of cigarettes.

Kaburagi said the sudden demand forced brothel operators to advertise

for women who were not licensed prostitutes.

Natsue Takita, a 19-year-old Komachien worker whose relatives had been

killed in the war, responded to an ad seeking an office worker. She

was told the only positions available were for comfort women and was

persuaded to accept the offer.

According to Kaburagi's memoirs, Takita jumped in front of a train a

few days after the brothel started operations.

"The worst victims ... were the women who, with no previous

experience, answered the ads calling for `Women of the New Japan,"' he

wrote.

By the end of 1945, about 350,000 U.S. troops were occupying Japan. At

its peak, Kaburagi wrote, the RAA employed 70,000 prostitutes to serve

them. Although there are suspicions, there is not clear evidence non-

Japanese comfort women were imported to Japan as part of the program.

Toshiyuki Tanaka, a history professor at the Hiroshima Peace

Institute, cautioned that Kaburagi's number is hard to document. But

he added the RAA was also only part of the picture -- the number of

private brothels outside the official system was likely even higher.

The U.S. occupation leadership provided the Japanese government with

penicillin for comfort women servicing occupation troops, established

prophylactic stations near the RAA brothels and, initially, condoned

the troops' use of them, according to documents discovered by Tanaka.

Occupation leaders were not blind to the similarities between the

comfort women procured by Japan for its own troops and those it

recruited for the GIs.

A December 6, 1945, memorandum from Lt. Col. Hugh McDonald, a senior

officer with the Public Health and Welfare Division of the

occupation's General Headquarters, shows U.S. occupation forces were

aware the Japanese comfort women were often coerced.

"The girl is impressed into contracting by the desperate financial

straits of her parents and their urging, occasionally supplemented by

her willingness to make such a sacrifice to help her family," he

wrote. "It is the belief of our informants, however, that in urban

districts the practice of enslaving girls, while much less prevalent

than in the past, still exists."

The RAA collapses

Amid complaints from military chaplains and concerns that disclosure

of the brothels would embarrass the occupation forces back in the

United States, on March 25, 1946, MacArthur placed all brothels,

comfort stations and other places of prostitution off limits. The RAA

soon collapsed.

MacArthur's primary concern was not only a moral one.

By that time, Tanaka says, more than a quarter of all American GIs in

the occupation forces had a sexually transmitted disease.

"The nationwide off-limits policy suddenly put more than 150,000

Japanese women out of a job," Tanaka wrote in a 2002 book on sexual

slavery. Most continued to serve the troops illegally. Many had VD and

were destitute, he wrote.

Under intense pressure, Japan's government apologized in 1993 for its

role in running brothels around Asia and coercing women into serving

its troops. The issue remains controversial today.

In January, California Rep. Mike Honda offered a resolution in the

House condemning Japan's use of sex slaves, in part to renew pressure

on Japan ahead of the closure of the Asian Women's Fund, a private

foundation created two years after the apology to compensate comfort

women.

The fund compensated only 285 women in the Philippines, South Korea

and Taiwan, out of an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 comfort women

enslaved by Japan's military in those countries during the war. Each

received 2 million yen, about $17,800. A handful of Dutch and

Indonesian women were also given assistance.

The fund closed, as scheduled, on March 31.

Haruki Wada, the fund's executive director, said its creation marked

an important change in attitude among Japan's leadership and

represented the will of Japan's "silent majority" to see that justice

is done. He also noted that although it was a private organization,

the government was its main sponsor, kicking in 4.625 billion yen,

about $40 million.

Even so, he admitted it fell short of expectations.

"The vast majority of the women did not come forward," he said.

As a step toward acknowledging and resolving the exploitation of

Japanese women, however, it was a complete failure.

Though they were free to do so, no Japanese women sought compensation.

"Not one Japanese woman has come forward to seek compensation or an

apology," Wada said. "Unless they feel they can say they were

completely forced against their will, they feel they cannot come

forward."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/25/comfort.women.ap/index.html

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