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Comfort Women Research Paper

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1) Hi, I’m Valeria Tasinato, and I’m going to talk about Korean comfort women, and some photos related to them, shot during the battle of Mount Song, happened during World War II, and fought by Japanese soldiers against Chinese and American forces. But first, who were “comfort women”? With the term “comfort women” we refer to women who were sexually exploited by Japanese military during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Second World War. They were from territories occupied by the Japan’s Empire, and the majority of them were Japanese, Korean, and Chinese; but even Filipino, Taiwanese, Burmese, Indonesian, Dutch and Australian women were interned. 2) The first ianjo (comfort stations) was set up after the January 28 Incident, also known as …show more content…

The Chinese Nationalistic forces were aiming to retaking the Burma road, while the British and American troops were advancing in Southern Yunnan, blocking every possible way of escape for the Japanese Army, that ended up being trapped. The Japanese so started to build all a series of tunnels and bunkers inside the mountains, turning it into a real fortress. Chinese forces were unaware of the depth of Japanese defenses, and of the setting up of traps, like hidden pillboxes. So, the battle took places for three months, and ended up with the Chinese forces retaking Mount Song, through bombardment, and the use of several U.S. TNT placed in tunnels beneath the fortification. At the beginning of the battle in Songshan there were 24 comfort women attending the 1200 Japanese soldiers. Other than being their comfort women, they additionally had to wash, cook, and clean for their captors. Towards the end of the battle, 12 Japanese comfort women committed suicide, while 7 were captured, by the Chinese and U.S. forces; five or six of them were Koreans. The photo is dated September the 3rd on the 1944, was shot in Yunnan, China, during the Battle of Mount Song. Was shot by a U.S army private, called Charles H. Hatfield, who was a photographer from the American Signal Corps, in the 164th Photographic Unit. The photo portrays four Korean women and a man, who likely was a Chinese guard, watching over the women, after being liberated by the allied forces. The four women are standing in front a cave bunker, where probably they were hiding, and from their state we can assume they just have been captured. They were hiding because Japanese soldiers told them that if they have been captured by the allies, they would have been tortured or killed. In fact, we can easily see the fear on the

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