BACKGROUND OF 'COMFORT WOMEN' ISSUE
No hard evidence of coercion in recruitment of comfort women
��強制連行の資料なしhttp://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070331dy02.htm
This is the second installment on the so-called "comfort women" controversy. The U.S. House of Representatives has been deliberating a draft resolution calling for the Japanese government to apologize over the matter by spurning the practice as slavery and human trafficking. Why has such a biased view of the issue prevailed?
The issue of the so-called comfort women has been brought up repeatedly because misunderstandings that the Japanese government and the Imperial Japanese Army forced women into sexual servitude have not been completely dispelled.
問題が蒸し返される根底には、官憲による組織的な「強制連行」があったという誤解が十分には解消されていないことがある。
The government has admitted the Imperial Japanese Army's involvement in brothels, saying that "the then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women." The "involvement" refers to giving the green light to opening a brothel, building facilities, setting regulations regarding brothels, such as fees and opening hours, and conducting inspections by army doctors.
政府は、「旧日本軍は慰安所の設置や管理に直接関与した」として、旧軍が「関与」したことは率直に認めている。ただし、ここで言う「関与」とは、
〈１〉開設の許可
〈２〉施設整備
〈３〉利用時間や料金を定めた慰安所規定の作成
〈４〉軍医による検査
――などを指すものだ。
However, the government has denied that the Japanese military forcibly recruited women. On March 18, 1997, a Cabinet Secretariat official said in the Diet, "There is no evidence in public documents that clearly shows there were any forcible actions [in recruiting comfort women]." No further evidence that could disprove this statement has been found.
一方で、慰安婦の強制連行については「公的資料の中には、強制連行を直接示す記述はない」（９７年３月１８日の内閣外政審議室長の国会答弁）と明確に否定している。これを覆す確かな資料はその後も見つかっていない。
The belief that comfort women were forcibly recruited started to spread when Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to be a former head of the mobilization department of the Shimonoseki branch of an organization in charge of recruiting laborers, published a book titled "Watashi no Senso Hanzai" (My War Crime) in 1983. Yoshida said in the book that he had been involved in looking for suitable women to force them into sexual slavery in Jeju, South Korea. "We surrounded wailing women, took them by the arms and dragged them out into the street one by one," he said in the book.
「強制連行はあった」という見方が広がるきっかけとなったのが、１９８３年に元「労務報国会下関支部動員部長」を名乗る吉田清治氏が出版した「私の戦争犯罪」という本だ。吉田氏は、済州島（韓国）で“慰安婦狩り”にかかわった経験があるとして、「泣き叫ぶ女を両側から囲んで、腕をつかんでつぎつぎに路地に引きずり出してきた」などと生々しく記述した。
But researchers concluded in the mid-1990s that the stories in the book are not authentic. On March 5 this year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the House of Councillors Budget Committee that Yoshida's story does not prove that women were forcibly recruited. He said: "I think it was The Asahi Shimbun [that reported the story] that a man named Seiji Yoshida testified about his having searched for comfort women. But later [Yoshida's testimony] was found to have been made up."
しかし、この本は９０年代半ばには研究者によって信憑性が否定され、安倍首相も０７年３月５日の参院予算委員会で、「朝日新聞（の報道）だったと思うが、吉田清治という人が慰安婦狩りをしたと証言した訳だが、後にでっち上げだと分かった」と述べ、強制連行の証拠にはならないと指摘した。
As the comfort women issue started to take on political and diplomatic dimensions, some people in South Korea and also in Japan confused comfort women with female volunteer corps, strengthening the misbelief that there was coercion.
Female volunteer corps were, according to a historian Ikuhiko Hata's book "Ianfu to Senjo no Sei" (Comfort Women and Sex in the Battlefield), single women aged between 12 and 40 who were mobilized to work in factories, starting in August 1944, primarily to secure necessary labor.
また、慰安婦問題が政治・外交問題化する過程で、韓国や日本の一部で、「女子挺身隊」と慰安婦を同一視する誤った認識を喧伝する動きがあったことも、「強制連行」イメージに拍車をかけた。
女子挺身隊は、秦氏の「慰安婦と戦場の性」（新潮選書）によると４４年８月から、「女子挺身勤労令」に基づいて１２〜４０歳の未婚女子を工場労働などに動員したものだ。あくまで労働力確保が目的だった。
There were cases in which malicious brokers sweet-talked women with promises of easy money or intentionally concealed from them what life was going to be like in brothels.
The War Ministry wrote a letter, dated March 4, 1938, to the troops dispatched to China. The letter, titled "Regarding the recruiting of women at the army's comfort stations," said there were malicious brokers who were recruiting women in a way "similar to kidnapping."
It said, "Nothing should be overlooked so that the military's prestige and social orders are maintained." The letter indicates how the Imperial Japanese Army tried to make sure that women were not forcibly recruited.
慰安所に女性を集めてくる女衒などの仲介業者が、高収入が得られるなどの甘言で誘ったり、慰安所での暮らしを十分説明しなかったりする悪質な手段を使う事例はあった。陸軍省が中国派遣軍にあてた「軍慰安所従業婦等募集に関する件」（３８年３月４日付）では、誘拐に近い募集など問題のある業者がいると指摘し、「軍の威信保持上、並に社会問題上、遺漏なき様」と呼びかけている。軍としては、募集が強制的にならないよう注意を払っていたことを示す資料と言える。
However, in the confusion of war, elite Imperial Japanese Army soldiers who were on the fast track for officer status sent detained Dutch women to a brothel in Indonesia. The incident came to be known as the Semarang incident.
The Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters closed down the brothel immediately after learning of the incident, and soldiers involved received severe punishment--some were sentenced to death--at a war crimes court convened by the Dutch Army after the war.
それでも、戦争の混乱の中で、インドネシアでは旧日本軍の「南方軍幹部候補生隊」が抑留されたオランダ人女性を慰安所に送り込んだ事件（スマラン事件）が発生した。
事情を知った上級司令部はすぐに慰安所を閉鎖させたが、事件の責任者らは戦後、オランダ軍による戦犯裁判で死刑を含む厳罰に処せられている。
（��に続く）
No hard evidence of coercion in recruitment of comfort women
��強制連行の資料なしhttp://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070331dy02.htm
This is the second installment on the so-called "comfort women" controversy. The U.S. House of Representatives has been deliberating a draft resolution calling for the Japanese government to apologize over the matter by spurning the practice as slavery and human trafficking. Why has such a biased view of the issue prevailed?
The issue of the so-called comfort women has been brought up repeatedly because misunderstandings that the Japanese government and the Imperial Japanese Army forced women into sexual servitude have not been completely dispelled.
問題が蒸し返される根底には、官憲による組織的な「強制連行」があったという誤解が十分には解消されていないことがある。
The government has admitted the Imperial Japanese Army's involvement in brothels, saying that "the then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women." The "involvement" refers to giving the green light to opening a brothel, building facilities, setting regulations regarding brothels, such as fees and opening hours, and conducting inspections by army doctors.
政府は、「旧日本軍は慰安所の設置や管理に直接関与した」として、旧軍が「関与」したことは率直に認めている。ただし、ここで言う「関与」とは、
〈１〉開設の許可
〈２〉施設整備
〈３〉利用時間や料金を定めた慰安所規定の作成
〈４〉軍医による検査
――などを指すものだ。
However, the government has denied that the Japanese military forcibly recruited women. On March 18, 1997, a Cabinet Secretariat official said in the Diet, "There is no evidence in public documents that clearly shows there were any forcible actions [in recruiting comfort women]." No further evidence that could disprove this statement has been found.
一方で、慰安婦の強制連行については「公的資料の中には、強制連行を直接示す記述はない」（９７年３月１８日の内閣外政審議室長の国会答弁）と明確に否定している。これを覆す確かな資料はその後も見つかっていない。
The belief that comfort women were forcibly recruited started to spread when Seiji Yoshida, who claimed to be a former head of the mobilization department of the Shimonoseki branch of an organization in charge of recruiting laborers, published a book titled "Watashi no Senso Hanzai" (My War Crime) in 1983. Yoshida said in the book that he had been involved in looking for suitable women to force them into sexual slavery in Jeju, South Korea. "We surrounded wailing women, took them by the arms and dragged them out into the street one by one," he said in the book.
「強制連行はあった」という見方が広がるきっかけとなったのが、１９８３年に元「労務報国会下関支部動員部長」を名乗る吉田清治氏が出版した「私の戦争犯罪」という本だ。吉田氏は、済州島（韓国）で“慰安婦狩り”にかかわった経験があるとして、「泣き叫ぶ女を両側から囲んで、腕をつかんでつぎつぎに路地に引きずり出してきた」などと生々しく記述した。
But researchers concluded in the mid-1990s that the stories in the book are not authentic. On March 5 this year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the House of Councillors Budget Committee that Yoshida's story does not prove that women were forcibly recruited. He said: "I think it was The Asahi Shimbun [that reported the story] that a man named Seiji Yoshida testified about his having searched for comfort women. But later [Yoshida's testimony] was found to have been made up."
しかし、この本は９０年代半ばには研究者によって信憑性が否定され、安倍首相も０７年３月５日の参院予算委員会で、「朝日新聞（の報道）だったと思うが、吉田清治という人が慰安婦狩りをしたと証言した訳だが、後にでっち上げだと分かった」と述べ、強制連行の証拠にはならないと指摘した。
As the comfort women issue started to take on political and diplomatic dimensions, some people in South Korea and also in Japan confused comfort women with female volunteer corps, strengthening the misbelief that there was coercion.
Female volunteer corps were, according to a historian Ikuhiko Hata's book "Ianfu to Senjo no Sei" (Comfort Women and Sex in the Battlefield), single women aged between 12 and 40 who were mobilized to work in factories, starting in August 1944, primarily to secure necessary labor.
また、慰安婦問題が政治・外交問題化する過程で、韓国や日本の一部で、「女子挺身隊」と慰安婦を同一視する誤った認識を喧伝する動きがあったことも、「強制連行」イメージに拍車をかけた。
女子挺身隊は、秦氏の「慰安婦と戦場の性」（新潮選書）によると４４年８月から、「女子挺身勤労令」に基づいて１２〜４０歳の未婚女子を工場労働などに動員したものだ。あくまで労働力確保が目的だった。
There were cases in which malicious brokers sweet-talked women with promises of easy money or intentionally concealed from them what life was going to be like in brothels.
The War Ministry wrote a letter, dated March 4, 1938, to the troops dispatched to China. The letter, titled "Regarding the recruiting of women at the army's comfort stations," said there were malicious brokers who were recruiting women in a way "similar to kidnapping."
It said, "Nothing should be overlooked so that the military's prestige and social orders are maintained." The letter indicates how the Imperial Japanese Army tried to make sure that women were not forcibly recruited.
慰安所に女性を集めてくる女衒などの仲介業者が、高収入が得られるなどの甘言で誘ったり、慰安所での暮らしを十分説明しなかったりする悪質な手段を使う事例はあった。陸軍省が中国派遣軍にあてた「軍慰安所従業婦等募集に関する件」（３８年３月４日付）では、誘拐に近い募集など問題のある業者がいると指摘し、「軍の威信保持上、並に社会問題上、遺漏なき様」と呼びかけている。軍としては、募集が強制的にならないよう注意を払っていたことを示す資料と言える。
However, in the confusion of war, elite Imperial Japanese Army soldiers who were on the fast track for officer status sent detained Dutch women to a brothel in Indonesia. The incident came to be known as the Semarang incident.
The Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters closed down the brothel immediately after learning of the incident, and soldiers involved received severe punishment--some were sentenced to death--at a war crimes court convened by the Dutch Army after the war.
それでも、戦争の混乱の中で、インドネシアでは旧日本軍の「南方軍幹部候補生隊」が抑留されたオランダ人女性を慰安所に送り込んだ事件（スマラン事件）が発生した。
事情を知った上級司令部はすぐに慰安所を閉鎖させたが、事件の責任者らは戦後、オランダ軍による戦犯裁判で死刑を含む厳罰に処せられている。
（��に続く）
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