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:* I strongly disagree with [[User:Bavio the Benighted|Bavio the Benighted]]'s suggested lead, as it would introduce a severely unbalanced POV. It effectively ignores and marginalizes the many sources that indicate the coercive practices that were inherent in the comfort women system (sources presented elsewhere in this talk page), indicated by phrasing such as 'vast majority' and 'thought to be, at the time, based on real events'. While I appreciate that [[User:Bavio the Benighted|Bavio the Benighted]] says they have responded to those sources below, it seems to be unduly moving away official and neutral sources, especially by only focusing on one particular source (ie. Yoshida's novels) to advance this 'wholly voluntary' viewpoint that the this lead sentence seems to be suggesting. This is not to mention some of the sources cited don't seem to support the lead sentence's suggestion. The references to Soh, Park and Yi, for instance, only note that there were some women who enlisted voluntarily, without supporting the claim that "the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services". In any case, the rest of the article already addresses some of the user's concern. [[User:John B123|John B123]]'s suggested lead (along with agreement by [[User:Binksternet|Binksternet]], [[User:Wtmitchell|Wtmitchell]] and [[User:STSC|STSC]], though correct me if I'm wrong to assume so) seems to be better and there seems to be a consensus drawing around it. [[User:NettingFish15019|NettingFish15019]] ([[User talk:NettingFish15019|talk]]) 04:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
:* I strongly disagree with [[User:Bavio the Benighted|Bavio the Benighted]]'s suggested lead, as it would introduce a severely unbalanced POV. It effectively ignores and marginalizes the many sources that indicate the coercive practices that were inherent in the comfort women system (sources presented elsewhere in this talk page), indicated by phrasing such as 'vast majority' and 'thought to be, at the time, based on real events'. While I appreciate that [[User:Bavio the Benighted|Bavio the Benighted]] says they have responded to those sources below, it seems to be unduly moving away official and neutral sources, especially by only focusing on one particular source (ie. Yoshida's novels) to advance this 'wholly voluntary' viewpoint that the this lead sentence seems to be suggesting. This is not to mention some of the sources cited don't seem to support the lead sentence's suggestion. The references to Soh, Park and Yi, for instance, only note that there were some women who enlisted voluntarily, without supporting the claim that "the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services". In any case, the rest of the article already addresses some of the user's concern
. [[User:John B123|John B123]]'s suggested lead (along with agreement by [[User:Binksternet|Binksternet]], [[User:Wtmitchell|Wtmitchell]] and [[User:STSC|STSC]], though correct me if I'm wrong to assume so) seems to be better and there seems to be a consensus drawing around it. [[User:NettingFish15019|NettingFish15019]] ([[User talk:NettingFish15019|talk]]) 04:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
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Revision as of 04:46, 6 February 2021

Former good article nomineeComfort women was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
June 29, 2006Good article nomineeNot listed

Template:Vital article This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2019 and 20 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jisuk1017 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Moriskume, Alexperez53.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 September 2019 and 2 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sam.morrison15 (article contribs).


A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:08, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Were there comfort men as well

or was it just the women the japanese used for comfort — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.241.207.184 (talk) 12:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sociological questions

Aside from the appalling injustice to women, what does the comfort women phenomenon say about the character of Japanese males? Was the ruthless exploitation simply a passing phase brought about by the stresses of war, or did it reveal something deeper about Japanese character? The rape of Nanking occurred 13 years before WWII. Why is there no discussion of this issue? Is such a question politically incorrect because is might lead to stereotyping? Does truth matter anymore? When did social science become the servant of ideology? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.137.86 (talk) 12:30, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wartime rape is extremely common throughout history, regardless of race, culture or time period. The attempt by the Japanese government to replace widespread rape with institutionalized prostitution was certainly novel, but upon examining the rationale behind the establishment of the system you should quickly realize that a similar idea could have occurred to anyone in power.

The main reason for why the Japanese government chose to invest in the project was due to its perceived usefulness in controlling the spread of STDs among frontline soldiers, and as a way to prevent rape, which they feared would instill hostility in the local populace and consequently make them more difficult to rule. Of course, we know in hindsight that the system ended up failing to live up to these expectations. On that note, there is little evidence indicating that this system of prostitution caused more damage than it prevented; for all we know, victims of the system may well have been treated considerably better than victims of uncontrolled wartime rape, given how (seemingly) many of them survived to tell the tale.

For a modern day example of governments that display a similar level of utilitarianism, we need not look further than the CCP in China, or the modern North Korean government. And utilitarianism is far from a trait unique to governments in Far East Asia; the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were infamous for their ruthless functionalism. And who knows, the Allies may have dabbled in similarly questionable pursuits, and we might simply be unaware of this due to lack of historical records. Either way, we do know wartime rape has always been (and still is) commonplace on all continents.

As for the reason for why wartime rape is so prevalent, several sociological, psychological and evolutionary biology-based explanations have been proposed. Gottschall's article "Explaining wartime rape" (published in the Journal of sex research in 2004) offers a good review on the subject. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 13:23, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The recruitment of voluntary comfort women at the beginning of the war

Since a user decided to start an edit war to revert to an older version of the introductory sentence that defines the term "comfort woman", I will add this talk section to address their point.

As is already mentioned in the article, the system started out as a program of voluntary prostitution, but derailed into a form of sexual slavery once the army could no longer bring enough voluntary prostitutes from Japan to meet an ever-increasing demand for comfort women, and consequently chose to outsource the process of procuring the sex workers to local middlemen. A source (pp 3-5) is already given in the article.

As such, given that voluntary "comfort women" did in fact exist, the first sentence of the article should take this into account in order to maintain neutrality and accuracy. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 16:14, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This topic would not exist if it was only about paid, voluntary prostitutes. The basis of the topic, the global outrage against the Japanese, comes from taking women and girls from occupied lands and forcing them into sexual slavery.
You have repeatedly tried to normalize the Japanese comfort women program, to explain the Japanese actions as logical or reasonable. Insisting on the mention of paid prostitutes is part of that push. You are trying to skew the topic away from global outrage, but that's how it is presented in the great mass of sources, so your push is non-neutral. Binksternet (talk) 16:41, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Accurately portraying history is not an attempt to normalize anything, there were voluntary women who were apart of the comfort women program just as there were those who were there against their will, purposefully omitting one while keeping the other is biased. Wikipedia is not about outrage but about building an encyclopedia, "global outrage" is not the focus of the article historical accuracy is, please remember that. XiAdonis (talk) 03:18, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Establishing a false balance is biased, not neutral. If a tiny fraction of the comfort women was voluntary, then giving that fraction equal prominence is false balance and biased. Binksternet (talk) 06:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming your hypothetical example of giving equal prominence to both voluntary and unvoluntary women without regard to portraying matters as they actually were historically were true then yes that would be false balance.
"false balance is biased, if a false balance is done then that is biased", yea no shit buddy. If your going to say something say something of substance and not this pointless nonsense. XiAdonis (talk) 06:36, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, just reminding that it'd be good to remain civil and avoid any personal attacks in this talk page, especially on a really controversial topic like this. After all, all edits are presumed in good faith and should be treated as such. Feel free to consult WP:TPG for any guidelines on how to handle a talk page discussion. NettingFish15019 (talk) 07:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lead sentence

I'm opening this discussion to head off what looks like a developing edit war over this. So far, it involves myself, Jpgordon, and Bavio the Benighted; this is the most recent edit. The crux of the matter is the word were. Later in the article, it is made clear that Comfort Women included not only women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army, but also other women, some of whom might have been involved in such activity prior to WW-II, and/or some of which might be involved in this activity voluntarily. The linked most recent change reverted the wording back to use the word were, which might be taken to imply that Comfort Women consisted only of the particular women and girls mentioned immediately thereafter, with an edit summary saying that a change to make it clear that others might have been involved requires discussion. Please discuss. Barring consensus to the contrary, I propose that this last change be reverted or that wording to the same effect be adopted. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:29, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support "Comfort women were mainly women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II, or who participated in the earlier program of voluntary prostitution" or something similar. It's a more accurate opening statement. --John B123 (talk) 19:40, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm only involved because of the edit warring; I don't have a strong opinion otherwise. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 00:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it would be poisonous to insert a false balance into the lead sentence by giving the tiny fraction of voluntary prostitutes any kind of mention. Of course we should tell the reader about them later, but not in the first sentence. The tiny fraction of voluntary prostitutes is not why we have this topic. Rather, the women and girls who were coerced and forced into sexual slavery are the topic. By far the majority of our sources describing this topic do so by first telling about the forced and coerced girls and women. We should follow that style. Binksternet (talk) 06:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with Binksternet. Also, the intro lead already has a reference to it anyways as "Originally, the brothels were established to provide soldiers with voluntary prostitutes in order to reduce the incidence of wartime rape, a cause of rising anti-Japanese sentiment across occupied territories". I think it'd be fairer to not include reference to 'voluntary', which seems to form only a minority of comfort women in the rest of the article and was mostly before much of the controversy, to which this topic is relevant, arose. NettingFish15019 (talk) 07:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A non insignificant number were willing prostitutes, I find issue with the "sex slave" wording as most historians avoid that label, there were an amount who were deceived by independent brokers and recruiters but they did not make up the majority and they were not sex slaves[1] , however thats not a discussion im willing to have right now.
Source/further reading if anyone is interested in learning in depth about this issue:
Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women: Information War against Korea, United States, and Japan by: Archie Miyamoto
Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone by: Ikuhiko Hata
To say that only a tiny fraction were voluntary prostitutes is simply historical distortion. XiAdonis (talk) 08:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just responding to the 'voluntary' argument here. I've added my argument and sources against this (which suggest that the broad majority of comfort women were coerced and did not volunteer) below in the "Relevance of Ramseyer" section, which I won't copy-paste here just to save space. I'd like to comment on XiAdonis's suggestion regarding the term 'sex slave' and point out that this label was officially been recognized by several academics and organisations, such as by the United Nations in McDougall's 1998 report (added in the section below). It would therefore not be inappropriate to use it. NettingFish15019 (talk) 14:06, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been looking at the talk page archive for this topic, and it seems there was a consensus reached around this opening statement "Comfort women were women and girls forced into a prostitution corps created by the Empire of Japan. The name "comfort women" is a translation of a Japanese name ianfu (慰安婦). Ianfu is a euphemism for shōfu (娼婦) whose meaning is "prostitute(s)". The earliest reporting on the issue in South Korea stated it was not a voluntary force, and since 1989 a number of women have come forward testifying they were kidnapped by Imperial Japanese soldiers" (from Archive 6). Much of the archived talk page seems to support against using 'voluntary' as false balance (though this is based on my skim-reading of the talk pages). I thought it'd be relevant here. NettingFish15019 (talk) 14:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A couple of points:
  • I don't find a source-supported assertion in the article to the effect that all but a "tiny fraction" (from above) of comfort women were forced into providing sexual services. Discussion above seems to hinge on an editorial consensus re the tininess of this fraction. If reliable sources exist supporting a characterization re the tininess of this fraction, it seems to me that the article ought to characterize this and ought to cite those sources. If sources differ, this ought to be handled according to WP:DUE. In the absence of this, or in the absence of a consensus among sources that the fraction is tiny, I think that the implicit assertion, were, in the lead sentence, which relies on the fraction being tiny, does not belong there. added: This 1993 NYT article reports that the Jpapense government has acknowledged that there were a large number of comfort women and that "recruiters resorted in many cases to coaxing and intimidating these women to be recruited against their will". It doesn't have any information re the proportion forced, though.
  • The false balance article wikilinked a couple of times above is "about the media term", and probably not directly applicable here. Argument to moderation seems closer, but not dead on; I have the impression that the argument being made here re that is similar to the argument there that "one should not be looking for a middle ground between information and disinformation." The problem with that is the difficulty of distinguishing which is which.
Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:32, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I get your point Wtmitchell. but I guess my concern is even if there's no consensus in this talk page re the fraction of those who were forced (and I don't think we will reach a consensus on that), the question is whether any reference to 'voluntary' should remain in the lead sentence. It's in itself a source of great controversy between Japan and countries from whom comfort women originated. My overall point is that putting in the lead sentence would risk WP:FALSEBALANCE (the link I meant to use, not the one going to the wikipedia article in general). The article has already addressed the concerns of those who want to keep it in the lead sentence (and it is already in the intro itself), but the most common understanding of the term 'comfort women' is for those who were forced into providing sexual services. The proportion, I agree, is up to much debate, mainly because most of the records coming from that time have been destroyed. The National Archive, for example, is aware of this problem, and is providing help in finding resources related to "Any materials related to the so-called "Comfort Women" program, the Japanese systematic enslavement of women of subject populations for sexual purposes". But most media, academic and diplomatic sources (a simple Google search suffices) show that the term 'comfort women' is linked with women who were forced, not those who volunteered. To include 'volunteer' would add undue weight, in line with WP:WEIGHT. NettingFish15019 (talk) 06:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This would be historical distortion, though. The fact of the matter is that all women who served in comfort stations were referred to as "comfort women". There were 50 000 - 400 000 in total, and the vast majority had been hired as prostitutes and were treated and paid extremely well compared to their contemporaries in local brothels (source: "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War" by J. Mark Ramseyer ; memoirs of Mun Ok-ju ; several books by independent investigators published in the 2010s).
On the other hand, we only know of few cases of sexual slavery. Only 16 cases in fact, based on 16 testimonies. That's less than 0.1%―a vocal minority―so this in itself would amount to WP:FALSEBALANCE. According to most neutral, recent investigations, the previous claims asserting that a significant fraction of comfort women had been forced into sexual slavery appear to have been economically and ideologically motivated revisionism by former comfort women, feminists as well as Korean activists. The reason the Allies took no issue with the Comfort Stations nor made them a major talking point in the Tokyo Trials is almost certainly exactly because most of them operated legally. I did an in-depth examination of current evidence in the Relevance of Ramseyer section; to summarize, no current evidence (inc. all sources cited in the Wikipedia article here) corroborates the idea that more than 1% of comfort women would have been forced to work against their will.
In articles that concern historical constructs, maintaining historical accuracy should be regarded as a matter of tantamount importance, regardless of modern media portrayal of said concepts. At the very least, I don't think we should bend the definition of a historical concept just because modern media depiction focuses on a tiny subset of said concept. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 08:08, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
NettingFish1501, my concern is not with the word volunteer, it is with the word were. I think that it is clear that the ranks of comfort women included some women whe were forced into sexual slavery and also included some women who were in that situation voluntarily -- the question is, "Was the proportion of those who had been forced into sexual slavery so overwhelmingly large to make it reasonable to say in the lead sentence that comfort women were women forced into sexual slavery, begging the inference that this was true of all comfort women?". Another question, equally important in Wikipedia, is, "What reliable source supports this implicit assertion that this proportion was so overwhelmingly large?".
memoirs of Mun Ok-ju, I will be interested to see the source you mention when it appears in the Volume 65, March 2021 issue of the International Review of Law and Economics. I don't know whether I will be able to see it online but I'm guessing that, since I am presently located in the U.S., I will be able to get my hands on a copy through my local library.
Bavio the Benighted, thanks; your examination has been more thorough than mine. I would add that, as WP editors, we need to assure that WP article content observes WP:V and (importantly here, I think) WP:NOR. The use of the word were in the lead sentence must be based on some content in the article body which is supported by some cited RS(s) -- but I'm not sure of what that content is, of what those sources are, or whether they can be verified to support the sense of the use of were in that context. It seems to me that MOS:LEADCITE applies here.
Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Japanese government has officially and clearly indicated objection on the terms, "forced" and "sex slaves", and large numbers like " 360,000" based on historical research facts in "Diplomatic Bluebook 2019 / The Issue of Comfort Women."[2] The second point, expression of "sex slaves" contradicts the facts and should not be used, noting that this point had been confirmed with South Korea ain a Japan-South Korea agreement 2015. Please take a look at this page and consider these points.Yasuo Miyakawa (talk) 07:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)Yasuo Miyakawa (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That 2019 Japan MOFA statement[2] does not seem to agree with the 1993 NYT article[3] which I mentioned above. That article used the term, "virtual slaves", but it seems to be based on the 1993 Kono Statement which, FWICS, is not so explicit in that regard.[4] Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Using the word "mainly" implies non-neutral POV. The only thing we know for a fact is that comfort women were prostitutes. Some coerced, others voluntary.
Scrutinizing the sources forced me to re-evaluate my position on the leading sentence. We should remove all conjecture. References to sexual slavery and/or volition inherently introduce bias and have no place in the definition of the concept itself. We are in no place to define the lives of 400 000 women based on the testimonies of 16, especially if those 16 contradict testimonies and memoirs of other comfort women (some of whom were pressured to silence by activists), and especially given the high likelihood of financial and ideological motivations affecting the content of said testimonies.
At this point I urge all editors to review the evidence we have: I repeat, there is nothing to indicate―even indirectly―that more than 1% of comfort women had been forced to serve the military. Defining the term as such would be expression of opinion, not fact. On the contrary, much evidence now suggests that only a tiny fraction were subjected to the type of treatment that is the source of the controversy today. The definition of a historical concept should not be based on the (financially and ideologically motivated) statements of a vocal minority amounting to <0.1% of all the people who fall under said definition, especially given that we have suspiciously few testimonies from the rest of the <400 000, not to mention from the tens of millions of friends, boyfriends, siblings, cousins, parents, grandparents, teachers, neighbors and so forth who should presumably also have been aware of this "forceful recruitment of women". Yet we only have 16 testimonies; this, if anything, proves that we are indeed looking at an exceedingly rare issue that only affected a very, very small minority of comfort women.
The notion of most comfort women being forced to work being "mostly taken for fact" is outdated. I refer to my arguments above and the Relevance of Ramseyer section. The notion is now rejected not only by Japanese researchers (whom many here seem to believe are somehow inherently biased, ignoring the fact that the most damning evidence for isolated crimes against comfort women are based on Japanese studies, not to mention that the outrage itself originated in Japan) but also by Korean investigators (see the sources below).
In light of all current evidence, the most accurate, neutral way to define the term would go more along the lines of:
"Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2.
The brothels gained infamy following the publication of a novel depicting kidnappings and incarceration of girls into comfort stations by Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, which, at the time, was thought to be based on real events. This was followed by 16 testimonies by former comfort women concerning poor treatment as well as deceptive and coercive recruitment practices. These revelations incited international outrage, with many likening the brothels to institutions of sexual slavery, although this notion has recently been challenged by researchers in Korea, Japan and elsewhere whose findings indicate that the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]"
Sources:
* Source 1: The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Author: Sarah Soh)
* Source 2: Comfort Women of the Empire (Author: Yu-ha Park)
* Source 3: Confronting Korea's Censored Discourse on Comfort Women (Article by Joseph Yi)
* Source 4: Memoirs of Mun Ok-ju
* Source 5: Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women: Information War against Korea, United States, and Japan (Archie Miyamoto)
* Source 6: Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone (Author: Ikuhiko Hata)
* Source 7: "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War" (Author: J. Mark Ramseyer)
With the above changes, I agree to removing the word "voluntary". There is very little factual information we can rely on to determine how 99% of comfort women ended up working at the stations. I would argue that them being much more well-treated and well-remunerated than most other prostitutes of their time would indicate a high likelihood of a large fraction of them having worked voluntarily, but given the lack of evidence in that regard this type of conjecture should, at the very least, not be mentioned in the definition itself. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 02:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - This is rather a non-issue to me. When a Wikipedia article is created, it's because the topic is notable. "Comfort women" is notable because of the sexual slavery issue; the "voluntary prostitutes" has never been a part of it. "Comfort women" is also the common name for the women abused in sexual slavery by the Japanese in WWII. We only need to define what "comfort women" is commonly known as. STSC (talk) 15:16, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Look at the Wikipedia page for Nazi Party. Is the party defined as "the people who killed Jews for no reason and tried to conquer the world"?
That's how the term "nazi" is used in common parlance, and very much the extent to which the Nazi Party is perceived by most people in modern society. That's also very much the extent of its "notability", as far as the average person is concerned.
This is not how the Wikipedia page defines the Nazi Party, though.
Why? The answer is simple: because that would be a sweeping generalization and thus historically inaccurate. And even then, that, in terms of sheer numbers, would still likely be far less of a generalization than claiming that comfort women "were sex slaves".
How the word is used in modern contexts is irrelevant; on Wikipedia, historical distortion is generally not tolerated for any reasons, regardless of public opinion. That said, if you feel this runs contrary to Wikipedia's policies and you wish to edit the page describing the Nazi Party to better fit modern usage, you may feel free to do so. However, I doubt this would be appreciated by any historians who use Wikipedia.
The exact same treatment should be given to all historical articles. Wikipedia should not re-define a word based on media sensationalism, because the site was never intended to parrot the claims of mass media outlets. Articles are supposed to be factual, and as such definitions should stick to verifiable facts and dispense with non-neutral POV.
Here is our current best candidate for an improved, neutral, objective and purely evidence-based definition (suggestions are welcome):
"Comfort women were prostitutes who worked at military brothels ("comfort stations") established by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied territories during World War 2.
The brothels gained infamy following the publication of a novel depicting kidnappings and incarceration of girls into comfort stations by Japanese novelist Seiji Yoshida, which, at the time, was thought to be based on real events. This was followed by 16 testimonies by former comfort women concerning poor treatment as well as deceptive and coercive recruitment practices. These revelations incited international outrage, with many likening the brothels to institutions of sexual slavery, although this notion has recently been challenged by researchers in Korea, Japan and elsewhere whose findings indicate that the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]"
Do we have consensus with this definition? If not, why not, and what changes would you suggest? This definition incorporates the allegations of sexual slavery by the activists, thus perfectly addressing the issue of notability. It also contains no mention of "voluntary prostitutes"; as such, it seems to take into account all concerns that have been expressed thus far.
Unless I'm missing something, contrary to previous definitions, this one is also completely in line with all primary sources, both those given in this talk page as well as everything cited (directly or indirectly) in the actual article. And again, please, I urge everyone to re-examine all sources; once you do so, it becomes glaringly obvious that the article, as it currently stands, is largely based on opinion, not fact. I refer to my arguments above, as well as to those below, in the Relevance of Ramseyer section. If you have counterarguments or suggestions for improving the definition above, please let me know. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And note that if we do decide to redefine the term based on popular conceptions, all references to the total number of historical comfort women (i.e. 20 000 - 400 000) will need to be removed, and the Japanese "ianfu" can no longer be mentioned as a synonym either, because both only apply when "comfort woman" is used as a translation for "ianfu". If we redefine "comfort women" as "the subset of ianfu who were subjected to sexual slavery based on testimonies", information pertaining to historical comfort women in general will completely lose relevance in the context of this article. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 17:50, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Recovering the Truth about the Comfort Women".
  2. ^ a b "Diplomatic Bluebook 2019 / The Issue of Comfort Women". Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan). 2019. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
  3. ^ "Japan Admits Army Forced Women Into War Brothels". The New York Times. August 5, 1993.
  4. ^ "Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono on the result of the study on the issue of "comfort women" (unofficial translation)". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. August 4, 1993.
  5. ^ Soh, Sarah (2008). The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226767772.
  6. ^ Park, Yu-ha (2013). Comfort Women of the Empire.
  7. ^ Yi, Joseph. "Confronting Korea's Censored Discourse on Comfort Women". The Diplomat. James Pach. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  8. ^ "Memoirs of Mun Ok-ju".
  9. ^ Miyamoto, Archie (2018). Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women: Information War against Korea, United States, and Japan. ISBN 978-1980350057.
  10. ^ Hata, Ikuhiko (2018). Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone. Hamilton Books. ISBN 978-0761870333.
  11. ^ Ramseyer, J. Mark. "Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War". ScienceDirect. International Review of Law and Economics.
  12. ^ Soh, Sarah (2008). The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226767772.
  13. ^ Park, Yu-ha (2013). Comfort Women of the Empire.
  14. ^ Yi, Joseph. "Confronting Korea's Censored Discourse on Comfort Women". The Diplomat. James Pach. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
  15. ^ "Memoirs of Mun Ok-ju".
  16. ^ Miyamoto, Archie (2018). Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women: Information War against Korea, United States, and Japan. ISBN 978-1980350057.
  17. ^ Hata, Ikuhiko (2018). Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone. Hamilton Books. ISBN 978-0761870333.
  18. ^ Ramseyer, J. Mark. "Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War". ScienceDirect. International Review of Law and Economics.
  • I strongly disagree with Bavio the Benighted's suggested lead, as it would introduce a severely unbalanced POV. It effectively ignores and marginalizes the many sources that indicate the coercive practices that were inherent in the comfort women system (sources presented elsewhere in this talk page), indicated by phrasing such as 'vast majority' and 'thought to be, at the time, based on real events'. While I appreciate that Bavio the Benighted says they have responded to those sources below, it seems to be unduly moving away official and neutral sources, especially by only focusing on one particular source (ie. Yoshida's novels) to advance this 'wholly voluntary' viewpoint that the this lead sentence seems to be suggesting. This is not to mention some of the sources cited don't seem to support the lead sentence's suggestion. The references to Soh, Park and Yi, for instance, only note that there were some women who enlisted voluntarily, without supporting the claim that "the vast majority of comfort women had been legally contracted for the job and were well-remunerated for their services". In any case, the rest of the article already addresses some of the user's concern.
What matters is what made the term 'comfort women' notable. The analogy to the Nazi Party seems irrelevant here, which is a broad-ranging topic and is notable for reasons outside of the user's selected events. On the other hand, the term 'comfort women' has become notable due to the sexual slavery issue. and is commonly used as such. As John B123 says, the generally held view is that most women who were considered comfort women were forced. John B123's suggested lead (along with agreement by Binksternet, Wtmitchell and STSC, though correct me if I'm wrong to assume so) seems to be better and there seems to be a consensus drawing around it. NettingFish15019 (talk) 04:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relevance of Ramseyer

Added discussion section for the relevance of Ramseyer's view. I realize that he's a university professor, but not sure about the relevance of his view here. First, it's just added in the 'History' section with the opinion that 'comfort women' were not forced, which pushes a claim that effectively denies what most of the article states and which could add false balance. Second, it's published in Japan Forward, a nationalist and far-right (according to some media outlets like Forbes) tabloid newspaper published by Sankei Shimbun (See WP:NPOV's section on Bias in Sources). I would delete it, as I have been trying to do and as it's new content; from what I understand from WP:ONUS, it's up to whoever first added Ramseyer's view here to include it in the article. Just in case someone tries to report edit-warring though, I added a discussion here. NettingFish15019 (talk) 07:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On whether there was coercion, I'd like to make two points. First, I'm aware that there is recent argument by the Japanese government that there was no coercion involved. However, the broader consensus is that, in the vast majority of cases, there was significant coercion and no 'volunteers'. International sources include the United Nations Report in 1996, which details that women were deceived with promise of high-paying jobs and abducted and defined the comfort stations as 'military slavery', [1], UN special rapporteur Gay J. McDougall, who concluded that the Japanese Army violated the prohibition against slavery,[2] and Amnesty International [3], as well as official positions of countries like the United States (see United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121), China, South Korea and Malaysia. Academic sources include Gabriel Jonsson of Stockholm University [4], Hirofumi Hayashi of Kanto Gakuin University [5], John Lie of UC Berkley [6], and Shogo Szuzki of the University of Manchester [7], all of whom support and provide evidence that the vast majority of comfort women were coerced. Ueno Chizuko of Kyoto University particularly cautions against the 'volunteer' theory, for several reasons. First, the fact that "no positive sources exist supporting claims that comfort women were forced labor" must be treated with doubt, as "it is well known that the great majority of potentially damaging official documents were destroyed in anticipation of the Allied occupation". Second, the relative silence of victims caused their later testimony to be denied as historical evidence, despite the fact that "the comfort women system succeeded in keeping the women who had been made comfort women silent" and who later gave evidence with the help of women's support groups (at pg 131).[8]
The fact that the vast majority of comfort women were coerced was also acknowledged by the Japanese government until recently (up until around the 1990s). For example, the Japanese government in 1993 admitted coercion in recruiting comfort women, though denying any compensation in documents such as in Takagi Kenichi's address to the Association for Asian Studies in 1994[9], and the 1993 Kono Statement, until it was questioned by then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The result is that the broad consensus (excluding the current arguments made by the Japanese Government) is that the broad majority of comfort women were coerced.
Second, regardless of the arguments above, I'm not sure about the relevance of including Ramseyer's viewpoint in the history section, unlike possibly the viewpoint of the Japanese government, which Yasuo Miyakawa asserts. The contribution to the article is minimal with a simple assertion, which appears to make no significant contribution to the article as a whole and goes against the broader consensus presented by the article. To include his view would be to invite false balance and should therefore be deleted. NettingFish15019 (talk) 13:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "FURTHER PROMOTION AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS, INCLUDING THE QUESTION OF THE PROGRAMME AND METHODS OF WORK OF THE COMMISSION". Economic and Social Council, United Nations. Retrieved 1 Feb 2021.
  2. ^ Gay J, McDougall (June 22, 1998). "Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like Practices during Armed Conflict ( E/CN.4/Sub.2/1998/13)". United Nations, Economic and Social Council.
  3. ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20140329015834/http://www.amnesty.org.au/svaw/comments/21574/. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ^ Jonsson, Gabriel (Autumn 2015). "Can the Japan-Korea Dispute on "Comfort Women" be Resolve" (PDF). Korean Observer. 46 (3).
  5. ^ Hayashi, Hirofumi (May 2008). "Disputes in Japan over the Japanese Military "Comfort Women" System and Its Perception in History". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 617.
  6. ^ Lie, John (Spring 1997). "The State as Pimp: Prostitution and the Patriarchal State in Japan in the 1940s". The Sociological Quarterly. 38(2).
  7. ^ Suzuki, Shogo (June 2011). "The Competition to Attain Justice for Past Wrongs: The "Comfort Women" Issue in Taiwan". Pacific Affairs. 84(2).
  8. ^ Chizuko, Ueno (Fall/Winter 1999). "The Politics of Memory: Nation, Individual and Self". History and Memory. 11(2). {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ Takagi, Kenichi (March 1994). "The War Compensation Issue of Japan: Its Devleopment and Assignments" paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Boston Massachusetts". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  • The article you linked made no mention of Japan forward and while they did mention the Sankei Shinbun in passing they did not call them far right or nationalist. I understood that you were calling japan forward a tabloid but i disagree with that.
The arguments of the Japanese government is not that there was no coercion involved in any cases at all, this is a misconception. I would caution against using sources from the 90s like the ones from the UN as completely definitive as consensus changes with time, with the unearthing of new evidence, and with the dying off of political and ideological motivations, they should be cross referenced with the most recent scholarship and have their validity properly tested. The United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121 used the debunked and now retracted seiji yoshida memoirs as proof, a group of Japanese academics and historians criticized it heavily in an advertisement ran in the Washington Post. It cannot be taken seriously and im not sure if it counts as a binding and official position of the US government or just a ruling by lawmakers at the time. Amnesty International is ideologically driven and is not an authority on history, they are a human rights focused organization that ironically has been criticized for violating the human rights of its staff "Staff reported multiple accounts of discrimination on the basis of race and gender and which women, staff of colour and LGBTQI employees were targeted or treated unfairly."[1] Multiple governments including the United States has criticized Amnesty for one-sided reporting[2] I understand this has nothing to do with their claims about the comfort women and i am not using these criticism to counter those, i think its fine to include their view in the article if properly attributed but they are not focused on historical research, the work of historians should be preferred.
The first sentence in Gabriel Jonsson's paper you linked is already incorrect "About 80 percent of the estimated 70.000-200.000 comfort women Japan took by coercion from 1932-1945 were Korean", the majority of women were not Korean to state this as an absolute fact puts the entire paper into question. The man further states "Japan has given no official apology to the victims" this is an outright lie.[3]. Numerous apologies have been made, nothing in this paper should be taken seriously imo. I've only read the abstract of Hirofumi Hayashi paper but it seems to be about whether the Japanese military at the time held culpability for the women who were coerced or if it fell to individual brokers and recruiters. He takes the position that the military was responsible, the abstract makes no mention of how many women were coerced and how many were prostitutes, the word "slavery" is also not used at all I dont think the paper affirms what you used it as a source for. I dont have access to any of those papers outside of Gabriel Jonsson's so i cannot comment on them at all in depth, im not qualified to dispute them either and all i can do is point to other historians and academics that have published research saying otherwise. To be clear im not attempting to remove the "sex slavery" wording im fine with the article retaining that even if i disagree with it. To continue to comment on what you've said though, the kono statement states two things i want to point out
"The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted in response to the request of the military." this seems to contradict Hirofumis's paper, you are presenting alot of sources and claiming a historical consensus however there is not even consensus between your sources, admittedly this issue is very complex and i dont believe this level of disagreement can be avoided but that only pokes holes at any claim of true historical consensus.
"In many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc." again no claim is made on the number of coerced women
This paper published by Ramseyer goes quite in depth and is not a "simple assertion" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818820301848, removing his view because it contradicts some of the article is the wrong move, i think ive illustrated why your claim at a historical consensus against Ramseyer is incorrect. I do think the article can be improved by properly stating Ramseyers view and explaining why he came to that conclusion which would fix your criticism that it makes no significant contribution to the article outside of stating his view. XiAdonis (talk) 19:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Amnesty International has toxic working culture, report finds".
  2. ^ "Press Briefing by Scott McClellan".
  3. ^ "Issues regarding History". Minsitry of Foreigh Affairs, Japan. February 1, 2021.
  • Forbes pretty clearly states "The party's newspaper, Akahata (赤旗), has over 1.12 million readers and one weekly magazine predicts they may eclipse Japan's far right newspaper, Sankei Shimbun in the near future". Nippon also says "Sankei Shimbun, which takes pride in its position at the far right of the spectrum"(Nippon), which extends "Japan Forward" because it publishes it.
As for your claims, I'd like to avoid any further general discussion on the topic if possible, especially as Wikipedia talk pages aren't for that. I'll respond briefly to your points though. On your overall comments on the UN, US and Amnesty International, I brought these up to show that the broader consensus, at least in the international community, which has undertaken its own discussions on this subject, is that comfort women were largely coerced. You can't limit the issue to the "work of historians" when this issue has strong political implications.
Specifically, for the UN, I wanted to show that the international community has already undertook its own research and concluded that the vast majority of comfort women were coerced; the lack of any subsequent UN reports and their thorough research makes it so that the 1990s UN reports are still good and reliable. As for the US House Resolution, I can't find anything to support the "retracted memoirs" or "letter". In any case, I only highlighted it to show that the US's official position is that comfort women were largely coerced. You can't say that it can't be taken seriously when House resolutions express the collective sentiment of the House on a particular issue, which in this case is comfort women. I also don't think the House Resolution has been reversed by the US government. It's been endorsed by countries including the European Union, the Netherlands, Canada and the Philippines (see here)), which demonstrates the larger consensus around this issue. As for Amnesty International, I'm not sure what relevance the 'toxic working culture' claim has here. For the US link, your source doesn't seem to critize Amnesty International, but only the claims that the "US is a top offender of human rights". In any case previous Wikipedia notability discussion came to the consensus that it is a largely reliable source (see here and here.
As for the criticisms you make against the sources, I'm not going to go into each of your claims to avoid a general discussion, except to note that I can't find any sources that dispute Jonsson's claim (nor have any been linked here, except for the Japanese government's view). In any case, the claim that "because one thing is wrong, it means everything must be wrong" would be dangerous, and would probably leave this page, if not the majority of Wikipedia, source-less. The historical and broad consensus I'm trying to show is that "the vast majority of comfort women" were forced, which each of these sources state and provide evidence for. This Open Letter by around 150 academics also support this. As the vast majority of academic literature supports this broader consensus, adding Ramseyer's view doesn't help advance this article as a whole. The only sources that I can find which possibly dispute this either come from the Japanese government (whose views are already in the article and are relevant to the article as a whole as they are a stakeholder) or right-to-far-right newspapers/blogs, which by Wikipedia notability guidelines should not be included.
I'll conclude by saying that the Japanese government had acknowledged that the vast majority of comfort women were forced and changed its stance changed post-1990s (here). Most of the dispute that the Japanese government has had is whether the Japanese government itself is responsible for compensation, not whether most comfort women were forced. In any case, I fail to find any sources or statements by other countries which support Japan's position. Ramseyer's view should not be included in this article, as it adds little to it as a whole while going against the broader academic and international consensus.
In any case, we need to reach a consensus on how to deal with the reference to Ramseyer sooner or later. NettingFish15019 (talk) 03:16, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We must remove the Ramseyer piece from Japan Forward as it is a far-right, politically motivated misrepresentation of the issue. Ramseyer is much more careful to remain fact-based in his scholarly journal article "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War", from the International Review of Law and Economics, scheduled for print publication in March 2021. In the latter piece, Ramseyer restrains himself from claiming that all or most comfort women were voluntary. He discusses the voluntary aspect in depth, describing the economics of the program, but he does not deny the forced sex slavery. Binksternet (talk) 06:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, it took a while but now I have read through all the sources you cited and fact-checked the sources they cited. Having traced all claims to their root, I can confidently assert that there is no "consensus" and that the vast majority of comfort women, probably more than 99%, were voluntary prostitutes.
The New York Times article only mentions the Japanese government acknowledging that "many" women were coerced to work in the brothels. There are no mentions of actual numbers or how the government came to that conclusion (not that they ever could reach that conclusion with any degree of certainty, given that records were disposed of in 1945). Based on the overwhelming weight of evidence, the actual numbers seem to have been extremely low compared to those of voluntary prostitutes. It seems that the Japanese government simply went with the prevailing narrative without performing an internal investigation, given that they present no factual basis for their admission, same as with the US and EU.
The UN rapporteur's 1996 report is based on the 16 testimonies by the same handful victims who have been cited by other sources as well, which is far from sufficient to indicate widespread sexual slavery. The rest of their "evidence" simply proves the existence of military brothels:
Though little documentation remains that bears witness to the recruitment methods, the actual operation of the system is widely attested in records which survive from the period. The Japanese military meticulously recorded the details of a prostitution system that appeared as to be regarded as merely another amenity. The rules for comfort stations in Shanghai, Okinawa, other parts of Japan and China and the Philippines still survive, detailing, inter alia, rules for hygiene, hours of service, contraception, payment of women and prohibitions of alcohol and weapons. These regulations are some of the most incriminating of the documents to have survived the war."

Yes, you read right. The most incriminating piece of evidence proves that the Japanese military established the brothels, took care of hygiene, prohibited weapons and alcohol (probably for the safety of the workers, given that the army had paid them in advance), mandated use of contraception, had predetermined hours of service and payments for the comfort women. I.e. the only solid evidence we have literally suggests, according to the UN 1996 report, that the comfort stations were high class brothels and that comfort women were treated like high class prostitutes. This is exactly in line with Ramseyer's findings.
The UN report also mentions an isolated case of brutality involving 70 victims in Micronesia, but mentions no details whatsoever, making the claim impossible to fact-check and rendering it dubious at best.
The official position of the United States in 2007 has absolutely zero value given that they used that Seiji Yoshida's fictional novel as "evidence" which is solid proof indicating that they literally couldn't be bothered to fact-check their sources and which immediately invalidates all "authority opinions" that effectively copy paste the US 2007 stance.
As for the rest of the academic sources you cite: Jonsson does not give any evidence. Hayashi refers to a statement by JWRC which makes a vague reference to "official documents" without giving a single example (presumably referring to those that prove involvement of military in the establishment and maintenance of the brothels) and then mentions two other cases of purported coercion of women, which may well be fringe cases, given that there were supposedly 50 000 - 400 000 women working in the brothels compared to the <500 reported victims. After some more digging / trying to trace their sources I found this as well as two different accounts of police having rounded up women, once in Borneo and another time in East Timor. So the evidence boils down to three isolated cases of abuse of authority by the special police (or members of the army; some of these accounts have absolutely no details and one was based on an indirect account of other people's testimonies, making it even harder to discern the line between fact and fiction). None of the evidence leads us to conclude that any more than a thousand of comfort women would have been coerced to serve against their own will, which is far from the majority and seems easier to attribute to actions by individual malicious actors rather than all the local middlemen or the military as a whole. Most of the evidence in the publications you cite only serve to corroborate the idea that the system was indeed based on voluntary service, given how difficult it is to find accounts that point to the contrary.
If there is a "wide consensus" then it must be based on solid evidence. Any consensus without proof to back it up is going to crumble as soon as someone points out the lack of evidence. And when we look at the evidence, we find that until now, a wide consensus has only been reached on two points:
* 1. The Imperial Army established the comfort stations to provide soldiers with voluntary prostitutes (quite obvious given that one of their goals was to prevent rape) and was involved in their maintenance, and
* 2. Some (at least 10-40 based on testimonies, maybe up to 1000) women were probably forced to work in them against their own will. This is if we take their word for it; they presumably wouldn't want to lie, despite the obvious financial incentives, the possibility they might want to lie simply to incite hatred to force an apology from Japan for their own isolated cases of misfortune, them probably wanting to double down on their claims given that if they back down they might lose face, and political factors such as nationalists whispering in their ears telling them to be as tough as they possible could.
Everyone presumably agrees that some prostitutes, some 10-40 of them, were screwed by the system and forced to work at the stations. Just as with all prostitution even in the modern world, not all of the workers enter the profession out of their own will. Nothing else has been agreed upon by academics, and you can see this in the way most well-cited historians refer to the events, being careful not to imply anything more than that some comfort women were victims of the system.
Post-2010 much more evidence has been brought to the light of day, such as testimonies and memoirs by non-abused comfort women whose voices had long been censored by the Korean activists, which makes it clear that no pre-2010 narratives can be taken at face value. In fact, the idea that most were coerced seems to have been entirely made up by Seiji Yoshida after which the notion was adopted (uncritically) by activists. Many of the women did testify of abuse (with 16 out of 238 registered survivors claiming that they had been abducted by soldiers) but these testimonies were later contradicted by accounts by other ex-comfort women, whose experiences were much more in line with what you would expect from a system of legal prostitution. Based or Ramseyer's research and e.g. the memoirs of Mun Oku-chu, most comfort women could earn a fortune in their job. That's a far cry from "sexual slavery"; it doesn't even seem remotely like what we would expect from a system of forced prostitution. Those alternative accounts were thoroughly censured and shamed in Korea, and at least one of the comfort women had seemingly blatantly lied about being abducted from home in the middle of the night contrary to her own earlier testimony. In light of all the new evidence, at this point, no one seems to be seriously trying to argue that anything more than a vocal minority had been forced into sexual slavery within the system, and even in these cases it seems highly likely that none of the girls were actually abducted, but were instead sold to the establishments by their parents and middlemen, presumably to pay off a debt or simply to earn money.
And this should go without saying, but note that appealing to authority is a logical fallacy. Actual authoritative sources always detail the source of the information. If one authority says one thing and another authority says another, that's the point where we start scrutinizing the evidence behind the assertions to get to the bottom of things. Almost all of the citations in this case point to the victim testimonies and nothing else. None of the sources you cite address evidence that surfaced in the 2010s by independent investigators much of which directly contradicts earlier consensus (not surprising, considering that that "consensus" was established almost purely based on 16 testimonies).
The open letter you linked only mentions the few testimonies we already know of, as well as the military involvement in establishing and maintaining the brothels. Based on these facts alone, we can conclude that perhaps 20-1000 comfort women were treated as sex slaves, while the rest of the 50 000 - 400 000 worked in the stations out of their own volition. As of now, the Wikipedia article uncritically parrots the claims of a vocal minority amounting to 0.01% - 1% of all comfort women based solely on a couple of anecdotes, second-hand sources and hearsay. The article is clearly not up to Wikipedia's standards in terms of objectivity or neutrality; it is heavily biased in favor of a single outdated narrative, which also happens to be pushed by some 'academics' without evidence, probably out of political reasons or pure ignorance.
If you can find a source that mentions an actual study or records, or even indirect (but convincing) evidence that would facilitate quantifying the number of women who were coerced as opposed to being hired through legal channels, feel free to link it here. It doesn't seem like anything of the sort exists, though, in which case the article needs a thorough overhaul to restore neutrality and accuracy.
Bavio the Benighted (talk) 04:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, what a pile of unsupported nonsense. 99% voluntary? Ridiculous. You have shot yourself in foot here, losing all credibility. Binksternet (talk) 04:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to have completely forgotten the purpose of Wikipedia. I have zero credibility, and so do you. This is irrelevant, however, since we let the sources do the talking.
So, go ahead. If you find my assertion "ridiculous", feel free to present evidence to the contrary. I read all the sources; did you? Or are you just parroting them without bothering to read through them? Bavio the Benighted (talk) 07:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't need to "present evidence to the contrary" after you completely misrepresented the most widely accepted accounts, starting with the UN's thorough research. The UN stance is that the comfort women program "should be considered a clear case of sexual slavery and a slavery-like practice".[1] They describe how women were deceived starting in 1937, told they were signing up for factory jobs and similar, but dragged off to sex slavery, including girls 14 to 17 years old. They were kept guarded, prevented from leaving, forced to work as sex slaves. The UN reports "approximately 200,000" women were forcibly recruited, which makes any number of voluntary prostitutes pale in comparison. Because of this high level source in direct contradiction to your viewpoint, I don't think I need to spend time convincing you. Regarding the Ramseyer writings, I still think we must throw out the opinion piece in Japan Forward, and any text dependent on it, while we may keep the Ramseyer economic analysis presented in the scholarly journal. Binksternet (talk) 01:38, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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