IV)Questions about Testimonies of Former Comfort Women.
(Typical Case C)
I refused to work in a factory as a conscripted laborer in 1942. I was persuaded into going to Japan to earn money by a Japanese and two Korean men on my way back to home from a department store in Pusan. I was half forced to go abroad, and taken to Rabaul.

Professor Kim Yang Ki, a researcher about comparative culture between Korea and Japan, insists support evidence dose not prove the former Korean comfort women's testimonies at all. "If the woman was persuaded into working brothel first and taken to brothel, her existence would be unusual in the traditional society. If there is no witness at all, it is not strange. If witnesses appeared, it is more strange.

Most Korean comfort women were told that their jobs were taking care of soldiers, such as washing soldier's clothes. "Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No. 49" reported that this kind of service was not specified, but the work assumed to be connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally entertaining the soldiers. These agents' inducement was plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore.

If policemen and brothel's dealers persuaded Korean women with good jobs to deceive women, a witness must have existed. However, the witness did not know whether it was forced or not. There is no witness at all. It was necessary that the whole comfort stations could not let comfort women go out in order to contact with their parents. Comfort women could go out freely.

According to some former comfort women's temistories, "Hankou Comfort Station" (an Army surgeon's diary), and "Comfort Women Keiko" (non-fiction novel presented by Kakou Senda), comfort women could send money to their parents and contact with them through military mail. If the letters told that they were forced into prostitutes, (most Korean women could not write sentences, but they might be able to write prattle.), the rumor would be spread by a word of mouth. However, no evidences supported by their families and neighbors existed.

Ms. Yoshiko Sakurai, a famous Japanese journalist, reported that a word of mouth was a important means of communication even if mass-media were controlled and restricted. If family members knew their female family member was taken against her will and she was forced into comfort women by the Army, the rumor would be spread by word of mouth. Kim Yang ki's insistence is doubtful.

However, a lot of cases existed their parents were witnesses and they deceived their daughters.

"Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report No. 49" reports that businessmen induced them they could make a lot of money and repay their family's debts."
"Examination's report of Psychological Warfare (Translation Center of South-East Asia)" reports that M739 (a brothel dealer) purchased twenty-two Korean unmarried women, and they paid to their parents from 300 yen to 1000 yen in proportion to their characters, faces, and age. Traditional society could not make parents explain to their daughters about working in Yuukaku, and parents let businessmen deceive their daughters.

"A Comfort Woman Keiko" describes a foreman who introduced Korean workers into coal minings and took off their income. He said to a Korean girl, "While you cook rice and wash clothes at Kaho's bunkhouse, you could earn from 5 yen 50 sen to 7 yen a month. If you went to China and worked for soldiers as same as Kaho's bunkhouse, you could get 1000 yen in advance and sent her parents money every month. In addition, you could have three meals and would not worry about clothes, and you could put on feminine clothes."

This ignorant girl determined immediately, and she handed over her father 1,000 yen. Her parents must have immediately turned out there would not such good jobs in spite of being the front line. The girl would become a comfort woman. Her parents received money and sent their daughter to China without any word because of poverty. As a result, just the girl thought to be deceived. She had been actually sold because of her parents' understandings.

She described Keiko when her father received money:
"First, my father was nearly paralyzed with surprise, then he was dipped. He shed tears after a short time. He was pleased that I went to China. Keiko thought his tears showed sadness but pleasure as well as my mother shed tears when I left home because I was sold by my parents."

Though parents sold their daughters and got money, parents did not explain their daughters that they would go to comfort stations under the traditional society. As a result, their parents made brothel dealers deceive their daughters.

However, not all cases apply to this case. Parents caused the miserable misunderstanding in this case. If most parents sold their daughters, more former comfort women would have testified that they were deceived. The number of comfort women was from 60,000 to 90,000, and the ratio of Korean comfort women was 70 persent. The number of former Korean comfort women who testified to be deceived was three hunderd seventy-five.

A support group of Korean comfort women's lawsuit published the ratio of Korean comfort women who testified to be deceived or abducted was 67 percent. The ratio of the deceived Korean comfort women among all Korean comfort women was from 0.5 to 0.7 percent. Considering former comfort women who have been dead or cannot come out themselves, the ratio was too low. Moreover, the testimonies of the former Korean comfort women are quite doubtful.

Most Korean comfort women, who were sold by their parents, must have known that they would become comfort women with their parents' consents.
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