The Women The War Forgot - The Comfort Women | Heinous History | 1937

When Japan surrendered on the 15th of August, 1945, the world called an end to its most brutal chapter in history. Flags were lowered. Peace treaties were signed. Everyone just wanted to move on.

 

But nobody told the comfort women.

 

For years during the war, while men braved the frontlines, hundreds of thousands of women were abducted from their homes and their villages; enslaved into camps and forced to satisfy the needs of passing soldiers. Many died of disease and malnutrition, while others were killed for trying to escape. And what made it even more chilling was how bureaucratic it all was, from the kidnapping and the enslavement, to even accounting for the fees collected for each sexual encounter. And yet when the war ended, the soldiers simply left, and the women, those who actually managed to survive the atrocities, were left to deal with their trauma on their own.

 

In this episode, we trace the architecture of the comfort women system: who constructed it, who enforced it, and who was paid to look the other way. And we hear from the women who waited sixty years to say out loud what everyone already knew.

 

The world tried to forget about them and move on. 

 

So they had no choice but to make the world remember.

 

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