JŪGUN IANFU

A teen-age girl on an errand for family. A strange car. Full of uniformed men. Pulled her inside. Door closed. Car drove on.

Abduction.

Promises of work far away in cooking, nursing, laundry, textiles were golden tickets out of a life of poverty the way a stranger told another girl.

Deception.

Able young women

Disappeared from hometown streets. Reappeared at army stations. From Korea, from China, they were taken. From the Philippines, from Taiwan, they were taken. From Thailand, from Japan, they were taken. From Indonesia, from Malaysia, they were taken to serve strapping young soldiers from their beds, on their backs, took far too many shafts.

Daily, they endured slavery. War within a war. Their own bodies, theatres of attack. Their own wills versus the Imperial Japanese male will. Enlisted men clutched onto charms, numbers on scrap paper, formed a queue that stretched through the door. Soon after, high-ranking officers took their sordid pleasures at night.

At such stations, comfort was missing in action.

Army commanders claimed they were started for the reduction of social diseases and rape. Both escalated behind their walls, along with beatings and limits on movement.

Tides of war had shifted—Surrender of Japan, closer at hand—

Printed records on military comfort stations and their captive females were set to flame when the Americans came. World War 2 came to an end, but for former military captive females, there was no home to return to—

Years in isolation, decades in silence. Wartime trauma bottled up, memories of drunken/wilful torture, tethered to one building, one land, one area

Like butterflies with soft wings pinned—

Shame remained a constant worrisome companion. Until a brave Korean lady elder unloaded long-time hurt into a mic. One voice then became a resounding chorus of voices, liberating themselves from shame. Same hurt shared—army captivity, sexual savagery, escape impossible—

Hands appeared from nowhere, pulling out pins from butterfly wings—

Legions of the concerned—family members, community members—valiantly stand behind these former military captive women—now great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers and wives—outside of embassies demanding justice past due. And the Japanese government owe them tremendously.

Statesmen offer the stone wall—not apologies—to a questioning public. Right-wingers say Japan has nothing to apologise for. Grade school history books contain nothing about comfort stations or their female captives. Bronze statues honouring comfort station survivors are ordered to be torn down, wherever they stand.

So the war continues within old women's nightmares. So the battles continue over memory, hearkening to times they were seen as things.

Until real resolution with the state is achieved, the fight must continue. It's not about repairing the damage with millions in yen. It's about calling out the guilty party to take accountability for past crimes

Against the females of the Pacific & Asia.

Horde of butterflies crowd the sky, flying for their liberty—

______________________

W: 3.24 to 4.24

Jūgun Ianfu > Japanese: “Military 'comfort women'.”

Comfort stations: Military houses of prostitution.

[ Originally published in The Literary Times #2, Summer 2024.]