Video: 'Japan's wartime sex slaves' fight for justice | Unreported World'

(Monday, January 13, 1992) — Three days before Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa takes his first official trip to South Korea, the government admitted today that the Japanese Army forced tens of thousands of Korean women to have sex with Japanese soldiers during World War II, and hinted that women who are still alive might receive some kind of compensation.

Video: 'VIDEO FOOTAGE OF COMFORT WOMEN BEING RESCUED / KBS (News)'

Until today, Japan’s official position has long been that the “comfort women” were recruited by private entrepreneurs, not the military.

Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with most historians settling somewhere in the range 50,000–200,000; the exact numbers are still being researched and debated.

Video: 'Former 'comfort woman' recalls horrors'

Most of the women were from occupied countries, including Korea, China, and the Philippines. Women who were used for military “comfort stations” also came from Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaya, Manchukuo, Taiwan (then a Japanese dependency), the Dutch East Indies, Portuguese Timor, New Guinea and other Japanese-occupied territories.

Stations were located in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, then Malaya, Thailand, Burma, New Guinea, Hong Kong, Macau, and French Indochina.