The 'Comfort Women' System During World War II: Asia Women as Targets of Mass Rape and Sexual Slavery by Japan

The chapter The 'Comfort Women' System During World War II: Asia Women as Targets of Mass Rape and Sexual Slavery by Japan is included in the volume Gender and Catastrophe. This book explores the gendered and gendering effects of violence against women in extreme situations such as major wars, genocides, famines, slavery, the Holocaust, mass rape and ethnic cleansing. The female experience of methodical genocidal rape in the former Yugoslavia, women’s coerced participation in the Rwandan massacre, the comfort women system during World War II, the gendering of genocidal strategies during the Holocaust, nuclear testing in the Pacific and the reproduction ‘policy’ in Tibet are all integrated into a wider framework – a framework which uncovers the true consequences of identifying women as simultaneously sexual objects, transmitters of culture and symbols of the nation.