Taasho System Of Comfort Women

The political and social instability among the South East Asian countries allowed sex trafficking to take a major foothold within the international economies and communities. This system of injustice became a government regulated institution built on oppression, in which the cost of the war was the freedom of women. Most scholars argue that many conditions within Japanese history, culture, and society led to the system that ultimately enslaved women within institutionalized prostitution. The democratic practice that was developed in the Taisho Period was ended by the authoritarian system of “ultra-nationalistic ideology.” This forced the nation to take the “deviant path of mobilization for war.” The impact of colonialism in the development …show more content…
The hierarchal structure of the government and the transfer of oppression from the few elite who controlled the many gave rise to overt violence. This was most explicitly seen in the actions of the Japanese armed forces in situations such as the Rape of Nanking where the Imperial Army ravaged thousands of Chinese citizens. Thus, leaving the government in a vulnerable state where the image was tainted by various atrocities. By confining rape and sexual abuse to military-controlled facilities, the Japanese hoped to restore the image of the Imperial Army, especially in a war that required a mass mobilization of the nation. As well as preventing any anti-Japanese sentiment among those peoples in the occupied territories to ensure there would be no rebellions or any backlash while the Japanese were focusing on the war. Comfort women helped protect the sexual health of their soldiers because by testing the women and controlling their reproduction, the government could insure that the incidence of venereal diseases was very low. Therefore, manpower would not be lost and the expenses of the treatments would not add into the already costly expenses of fighting in a intercontinental war. Finally, the comfort system was brought …show more content…
The Japanese government and people of Japan are primary reasons for the extensive silence of the era of comfort women. Comfort women were and continued to be oppressed by the government and the familial hierarchy in Japan, as well as the devaluation of women within society. The Japanese government believed that any act could be justified under the name of their powerful Emperor. The Japanese government denied all of the allegations of war crimes and human rights violations that were committed under this nationalistic regime. Where family honor was a value that was held in the highest esteem within culture and society, most women did not speak up against the injustices in fear of being rejected by their own families. The value of women in society was already very low, and for those women who were abducted from their own security, they only felt even more worthless if they were lucky enough to survive the harsh conditions. This blatant denial and distortion of reality allowed for the continuance of racist and misogynistic views that contribute directly to the devaluation of a woman, her life and her body. This type of disregard for reparations, which are crucial to democracy and the decency of humanity, continues to affect the wider phenomena of sex trafficking that has plagued women and girls in the Pacific. The popularization of the fetization of Asian women has led to a rise in human