Thursday, March 29, 2007

Where are other comfort stations?

This is the fourth post regarding this article (via AMPONTAN).

The article says:

Did other military forces have a similar system?

According to both Hata and Yoshimi, Nazi Germany had frontline brothels during the war, using women, even by force, in Eastern Europe.


Hata lists similar comfort stations used in other cases (Hata ibid, pp145-173)
  1. Allied forces used Axis comfort stations in Sicily (Italy), Burma, Singapore, Hanzhou (China), Okinawa.
  2. Germany maintained 500 comfort stations during the war time. Germany had also comfort stations in concentration camps.
  3. Soviet Russians used rape instead of comfort stations in Germany and Manchuria at the end of the war. Similar thing happened in Bangladesh war (1971) and Cambodia-Vietnam war (1970).
  4. US used RAA, comfort stations set up in Japan during the occupation era.
  5. French used moving brothels (Bordel Mobile de Campagne) made up of North African women during the first Indochina war.
  6. US maintained "recreation center" during Vietnam war (circa1966).
  7. US uses comfort stations around US bases in Japan and in South Korea.
Hata says:
The most famous one is Dongducheon Base close to 38 parallel, which boasted 6,500 prostitutes at its peak. The numbers declined since, but 60 something whorehouses with 1,500 prostitutes are servicing US soldiers still these days. They have compulsory venereal disease check, and women are required to carry safety cards. This is indistinguishable from what happened in Japanese army comfort stations. (Hata ibid, p173)
It is very ironic that there is no outcry for the women working in the sex industry now.

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