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The Comfort Women and State Prostitution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Extract
The article by Onozawa Akane below is adapted from Chapter 3 (Comfort Women and State Prostitution) in Denying the Comfort Women: The Japanese State's Assault on Historical Truth (London: Routledge, 2018). Originally published in Japanese by Ōtsuki Shoten in 2013, the volume was written by prominent Japanese and Korean scholars—several of them contributors to The Asia-Pacific Journal—and edited by Nishino Rumiko, Kim Puja, and Onozawa for the Violence Against Women in War Research Action Center (VAWW RAC) in Tokyo. To place Onozawa's essay in a broader context, we introduce the book as a whole before commenting briefly on the significance of her contribution.
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References
Notes
1 We wish to express our gratitude to Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) for permission to reproduce Onozawa's seminal essay here with minor editorial changes.
2 Kōno, Yōhei (1993). On the Issue of “Comfort Women.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan Official Website. August 4. [online] [Accessed 13 April 2018].
3 McDougall, G. J. (1998). Contemporary forms of slavery: Systematic rape, sexual slavery and slavery-like practices during armed conflict. Report to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (Economic and Social Council), June 22. Geneva: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, p. 28.
4 The comfort women system was found to have violated Japan's international treaty obligations under the 1907 Hague Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, the 1921 International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, and the 1930 ILO Convention Concerning Forced Labor, in addition to the norms of customary international law encoded in the 1907 and 1926 covenants. See The Women's international War Crimes Tribunal (2001). Judgment. Part 1. December 4, pp. 182 ff. Quotation is from p. 262. [Accessed 13 April 2018].
5 The National Asian Peace Fund for Women (Josei no tame no Ajia Heiwa Kokumin Kikin) is generally rendered in English in abbreviated form as the Asian Women's Fund (Ajia Josei Kikin). This is the term employed by the fund's official home page (the Digital Museum) and by government officials, journalists, and academics of many political persuasions. We prefer the term National Fund (Kokumin Kikin), which strictly speaking is more accurate and avoids the paternalistic, self-congratulatory nuances of Asian Women's Fund. With this reservation, we follow established usage here and employ the familiar English term.
6 Between 2000 and 2006, Japan's leading opposition parties jointly submitted “wartime sexual coercion” bills to the House of Councilors on 12 occasions. The draft legislation would have obliged the government to apologize “for violating the honor and dignity” of the victims and provide them with formal state compensation. With a single exception, however, conservative lawmakers succeeded in keeping the bills from even reaching the legislative docket, and the proposals were never debated. See The Digital Museum: The Comfort Women and the Asian Women's Fund (2007). Attempts at Legislation in the Japanese Diet. The Asian Women's Fund. [online] [Accessed 23 April 2018].
7 The bilateral ministerial agreement of December 2015 was reached without consulting South Korean victim-survivors. In the unsigned joint memorandum, Foreign Minister Kishida Fumio conveyed indirectly on behalf of Prime Minister Abe a vaguely worded apology acknowledging some degree of Imperial military culpability in the comfort women system. Tokyo agreed to make a one-time humanitarian contribution of $1 billion (then US$8.3 million) to Seoul on condition that the ROK government set up a foundation to help recover “the honor and dignity and [heal] the psychological wounds of all former comfort women.” The agreement declared the comfort women issue thereby “resolved finally and irreversibly” and committed both Japan and South Korea to “refrain from accusing or criticizing [each other] regarding the issue in the international community, including at the United Nations.” On January 18, 2016, however, Japan reverted to business as usual. Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida told the House of Councilors Budget Committee that, “The term ‘sex slaves’ doesn't match the facts and … should not be used.” Abe, also present, added that, “There is no written evidence to show that military and civilian authorities employed force directly [in procuring women]…. The government's stance has not changed at all since the … first Abe administration.” A month later, on February 16, then Deputy Ministry for Foreign Affairs Sugiyama Shinsuke (now Japanese Ambassador to the United States) declared in an official statement to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) that, “it is not appropriate … to take up the comfort women issue in terms of the implementation of [Japan's] duties regarding the Convention [on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women]. The next day, he told the CEDAW that, ”the forceful taking away“ of women by Japanese administrative and military authorities ”could not be confirmed in any of the documents that the Government of Japan was able to identify in [its 1993] study.“ The expression ”sex slaves,“ he said, contradicts the facts. Asked by a member of the committee, ”if Japan [is] so willing to solve the issue, would it send an apology to all comfort women,“ Sugiyama ignored the question altogether. The query was well founded, however. Chief Cabinet Secretary Kōno Yōhe's 1993 apology had been to all comfort women ”irrespective of place of origin.“ Finally, on October 26, 2016, the South Korean foundation created to administer the Japanese humanitarian contribution, set up in July of that year, asked Abe to provide an official letter of apology to South Korean survivors, Abe replied dismissively that he was ”not considering such an idea at all.“ For the Kishida and Abe statements, see Session No. 3. House of Councilors Budget Committee, 190th National Diet. January 18, 2016. [online] [Accessed 4 May 2018]. For Sugiyama's statements to CEDAW, see Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Statement by the Head of the Delegation of Japan for the Seventh and Eights Periodic Reports. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. February 16, 2016, p. 8. [pdf] [Accessed 4 May 2018].
8 Nishino, Rumiko, Kim, Puja, and Onozawa, Akane with the Violence against Women in War Research Action Center, eds. (2013). “Ianfu” basshingu o koete—“Kōno danwa” to Nihon no sekinin (Beyond “comfort women” bashing: the “Kōno statement” and Japan's legal responsibility), Tōkyō: Ōtsuki Shoten.
9 For those requiring readily accessible information, the Japanese government's original 1993 investigation of the comfort women system is available online in English, Japanese, and Korean at the website of the now defunct Asian Women's Fund (see below). Although incomplete, the military and related documents displayed there are essential reading for a deeper understanding of this problem. Digital Museum: The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women's Fund (2007). The Japanese Military and Comfort Women. [online] Available at: http://www.awf.or.jp/1/index.html. These documents form the basis of the 1993 Kōno statement. Since then, researchers have discovered more than 1,000 additional wartime military and government records related to the comfort women system—materials government officials refuse to acknowledge. Some of these are available in PDF format at the Fight for Justice web page: http://fightforjustice.info/?page_id=608. The site is maintained in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and English, but documents are in Japanese only. Many of these documents have been found by Hayashi Hirofumi. See Hayashi (2015). Nihongun “ianfu” mondai no kakushin (The essence of the Japanese military “comfort women” problem). Tōkyō: Kadensha.
10 A recent attempt to place Japan's system of military sexual servitude in international perspective is Onozawa, Akane (2017). Sei baibai, Nihongun “ianfu” mondai to kokkashakai (The buying and selling of sex, the Japanese military “comfort women” problem, and the state actor). In: Rekishigaku Kenkyūkai hen [The Historical Science Society of Japan], ed. Dai yonji gendai rekishigaku no seika to kadai Fourth annual issue: accomplishments and problems of modern historiography), Vol. 2. Tōkyō: Seikibundō Shuppan, pp. 147-64.
11 A new critique of the Japan-ROK agreement is Nakano, Toshio; Kim, Chang Rok; Kim, Puja; Itagaki, Ryūta; Okamoto, Yūka, eds. (2017). “Ianfu” mondai to mirai e no sekinin: Nikkan “Gōi” ni kōshite (The “comfort women” issue and responsibility to the future: challenging the Japan-ROK “agreement”). Tōkyō: Ōtsuki Shoten. Five of the authors writing in Denying the Comfort Women have contributed essays to this volume.
12 Park, Yuha (2006). Wakai no tame ni: kyōkasho, ianfu, Yasukuni, Takeshima (Towards reconciliation: textbooks, comfort women, Yasukuni Shrine, the Liancourt Rocks). Translated by Satō Hisashi. Tōkyō: Heibonsha, and Park, Yuha (2014). Teikoku no ianfu: shokuminchi shihai to kioku no tatakai (Comfort women of the Empire: the battle over colonial rule and memory), Tōkyō: Asahi Shimbun Shuppan.
13 Song Shin-do passed away on December 16, 2017 at the age of 95.
14 Zeid, R. A. H. (2016). Statement by Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, to the Human Rights Council's 31st Session. Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, March 10. [online] [Accessed on 14 April 2018]. See also the March 11, 2016 report of U.N. human rights experts on discrimination against women, transitional justice, and torture issued immediately after Zeid's statement. Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (2016). Japan/S. Korea: The long awaited apology to “comfort women” victims is yet to come. March 11. [pdf] [Accessed 14 April 2018].
15 United Nations Committee Against Torture (2017). Concluding Observations on the Combined Third to Fifth Periodic Reports of the Republic of Korea. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner. May 12, p. 13. [pdf] [Accessed on 14 April 2018].
16 Committee for Historical Facts (2007). THE FACTS. The Washington Post, June 14. This public comment was released toward the end of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō's first term (2006-2007) and signed or assented to by more than 60 prominent revisionists. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party contributed 29 “assenters,” but 13 belonged to the centrist Democratic Party of Japan. The advertisement was written and endorsed by the Committee for Historical Facts, which was responding to a full-page ad in the Washington Post of April 26, 2007, paid for by the Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues and entitled “The Truth about Comfort Women.” April's ad had been timed to coincide with Prime Minister Abe's visit to Washington, D.C. on April 26 and 27. The Washington Coalition accused the Abe Cabinet of “retreating from previous statements of contrition and launching a campaign to deny that the government was directly involved” in the mobilization of comfort women. The larger backdrop to the dueling ads, however, was an imminent U.S. House of Representatives resolution calling on Japan to admit full responsibility for military sexual slavery and make just restitution to survivors (the resolution was passed on July 5, 2007). Five years later, the Committee for Historical Facts placed a nearly identical advertisement in the New Jersey Star-Ledger on November 4, 2012 almost two months before the second Abe administration took office. The ad abridged the list of “facts” from five to three, retaining the accusation that the comfort women were licensed prostitutes (Fact 3). This time, Abe himself and nine of his soon-to-be Cabinet members signed on as “assenters.” The ad was entitled “Yes, we remember the facts.” It was intended to rebut a large poster erected in October in New York City's Times Square under the heading “Do You Remember?” and calling on Japan to apologize for the comfort women system (the same text had also appeared as an ad in the New York Times in May of that year).
17 In occupied Korea, the legal age for women was 17, one year younger than in Japan proper. Regulations regarding the rights of prostituted women were also stricter than in the home islands. These differences are the subject of ongoing research. See Fujinaga, T. (2004). Shokuminchi Chōsen ni okeru kōshō seido no kakuritsu katei (The establishment of the licensed prostitution system in colonial Korea). 20 seiki kenkyū. No. 5, pp. 13-36; (2010). Song, Y. (2010). Seiki tenkanki no gunjisenryō to “baishun” kanri (Japanese occupation at the turn of the century and the control of prostitution). In: Y. Song and Y. Kim, eds., Guntai to seibōryoku: Chōsen Hantō no 20 seiki (The military and sexual violence: the Korean Peninsula in the 20th century). Tokyo: Gendaishiryō Shuppan, pp. 127-82; Song, Y. (2015). Shokuminchiki Chōsen no kōshō seido (Colonial Korea and the system of licensed prostitution). In: Violence against Women in War Research Action Center (VAWW RAC) with R. Nishino and A. Onozawa, eds. Nihonjin “ianfu”: aikokushin to jinshin baibai to (Japanese “comfort women”: patriotism and human trafficking). Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, pp. 52-69; and Kim, P. (2014). Shokuminchi Chōsen ni okeru yūkaku no ishoku to tenkai (The transfer and development of the licensed quarters in colonial Korea). Shirīzu yūkaku shakai. Vol. 2, pp. 261-91.
18 Shōgi were licensed prostitutes permitted to charge a fee in exchange for sexual intercourse with a client. Geigi, or geisha, were entertainers trained through long apprenticeships to sing, dance, and play the samisen. They were allowed to charge a venue fee for their cultural skills, but most also furnished sex to paying clients on the side. Shakufu were prostitutes working in Japanese-style eating and drinking establishments. They were not legally licensed to sell their bodies, but the authorities turned a blind eye to their prostitution. See Chūō Shokugyō Shōkai Jimukyoku [Secretariat, Central Employment Placement Service] (1926). Gei/shōgi/shakufu shōkaigyō ni kansuru chōsa (Survey of employment placement agencies for geisha, licensed prostitutes, and barmaids). Reprinted in Tanigawa, K. (1971). Kindai minshū no kiroku 3: shōfu (A record of the Japanese people in the modern era (3): prostitutes). Tokyo: Shinjinbutsu Ōraisha, pp. 373-438.
19 Kawashima, T. (1951). Jinshin baibai no hōritsu kankei (1): Geishōgi no marugakae keiyaku no kōryoku ni tsuite (Laws related to human trafficking (1): the binding power of comprehensive contracts for licensed prostitutes and geisha). Hōgaku Kyōkai zasshi. Nos. 68-67, February, pp. 1-44.
20 See Maki, H. (1971). Jinshin baibai (Human trafficking). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, pp. 222-23, and generally, Onozawa, A. (2010). Kindai Nihon shakai to kōshō seido: minshushi to kokusai kankeishi no shiten kara (Modern Japanese society and the system of licensed prostitution: from the viewpoint of a people's history and the history of international relations). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan.
21 Regarding the situation in England, see Walkowitz, J. R. (1982). Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 13-31. For France, see Corbin, A. (1978). Les Filles de noce. Paris: Éditions Aubier-Montaigne. Reading these accounts, one has the strong impression that English and French prostitutes were indeed more independent than Japan's shōgi, geigi, and shakufu.
22 Arakawa, S. (2001). Guntai to chiiki (The military and regional society). Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, p. 120, and Matsushita, T. (2013). Guntai o yūchi seiyo: Rikugun to toshi keisei (Let's invite in the military: the Japanese army and urban formation). Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, pp. 210-27. In Manchuria and the colonies, in particular, brothels and the military were closely associated from the start, but further research is needed. See, for instance, Song Y. and Kim, Y., eds. (2010). Guntai to seibōryoku: Chōsen Hantō no 20 seiki (The military and sexual violence: the Korean Peninsula in the 20th century). Tokyo: Gendaishiryō Shuppan, pp. 28-91.
23 Josei no tame no Ajia Heiwa Kokumin Kikin (The Asian Women's Fund), ed. (1997). Seifu chōsa “jūgun ianfu” kankei shiryō shūsei (Compendium of materials relating to the wartime comfort women issue: Government of Japan survey) Vol. 1. Tokyo: Ryūkei Shosha, pp. 3-112; Nagai, K. (2015). Nihongun no ianjo seisaku ni tsuite (The Japanese military's comfort station policy). In: VAWW RAC with R. Nishino and A. Onozawa (Japanese “comfort women”), pp. 86-108; and Onozawa, A. (2014). Geigi, shōgi, shakufu kara mita senji taisei: Nihonjin “ianfu” mondai to wa nani ka (Japan's wartime regime as seen by geisha, licensed prostitutes, and barmaids: the controversy over Japanese “comfort women”). In: Rekishigaku Kenkyūkai (The Historical Science Society of Japan) and Nihonshi Kenkyūkai (The Japanese Society for Historical Studies), eds. “Ianfu” mondai o/kara kangaeru (Thinking about the “comfort women” issue and its implications). Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, pp. 96-97.
24 Onozawa, A. (2014), pp. 89-129.
25 See Nagasawa, K. (1983). Kankō ianjo (The Hankou comfort stations), Tokyo: Tosho Shuppan, pp. 51-70, and Yamada, S. (1978). Bukan Heitan: Shina hakengun ian kakaricho no shuki (The Wuhan Commissariat: a memoir by a subsection chief of the [Imperial Japanese] China Expeditionary Army in charge of comfort stations). Tokyo: Tosho Shuppansha, pp. 70-85.
26 Representative works include Senda, K. (1985). Jūgun ianfu Keiko: Chūgoku, Gatō, Biruma—shisen o samayotta onna no shōgen (Keiko the military comfort woman—China, Guadalcanal, Burma: the testimonial of a woman who has been to hell and back). Tōkyō: Kōbunsha; Senda, K. (1978). Jūgun ianfu (Military comfort women). Tokyo: San'ichi Shobō; and Shirota, S. (1971). Maria no sanka (Maria's song of praise). Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyōdan Shuppankyoku. It bears repeating that while a sizeable number of Japanese comfort women were indeed licensed by the state, many others had nothing to do with prostitution, institutionalized or otherwise.
27 Hirota, K. (1975). Shōgen kiroku—jūgun ianfu kangofu: senjō ni ikita onna no dōkoku (Oral history: military comfort women and nurses—lamentations of the women who lived at the front). Shinjinbutsu Ōraisha, p. 11, and Hirota, K. (2015). Nihonjin “ianfu” no sengo: Kikumaru-san no ba'ai. In: VAWW RAC with R. Nishino and A. Onozawa (Japanese “comfort women”), pp. 194-205. See also Fight for Justice. Were “Comfort Women” “Licensed Prostitutes?” [online] [Accessed May 15, 2017].
28 A few Japanese comfort women even attended gatherings of their former military units' social clubs after the war. Refer also to Nishino, R. (2012). Nihongun “ianfu” mondai o saikōsei suru: Nihonjin “ianfu” to jendā (Reconstructing the military “comfort women” issue: gender and the Japanese “comfort women”). Dōjidaishi kenkyū. Vol. 5, p. 72, and Senda (1978), pp. 201-10.
29 Senda, K. (1985), pp. 146-58, 261-77, and (1978), pp. 133-66. See also Nishino, R. (2003). Senjō no “ianfu”: Ramo zenmetsusen o ikinobita Pak Yŏng-sim no kiseki (“Comfort woman” on the frontline: the journey of Pak Yŏng-sim, a survivor of the destruction of Ramo). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, pp. 102-15, 136-56.
30 League of Nations (1932). Report to the Council. Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, CTFE/Orient 39 (1). Geneva: League of Nations, pp. 522-29. It should be noted that the Japanese Penal Code of 1907 mirrored the concerns of the 1910 International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic. The code's Article 226 stated clearly that, “Whosoever shall have, for the purpose of transporting him or her out of the Empire, allured or kidnapped a person shall be punished with limited penal servitude for a period of not less than two years. The same penalty shall be inflicted upon whosoever shall have, with intent to carry him or her out of the Empire, sold a person or transported to a foreign country a person who has been sold or kidnapped.” Based on this provision, in 1935 and 1937, Japan's Great Court of Cassation, the equivalent of today's Supreme Court, upheld guilty verdicts by lower courts for brokers attempting to kidnap or fraudulently deceive young women (including a minor) for trafficking to sex venues in Manchuria and Shanghai. These cases were exceptional, however, and after 1937, Japanese courts turned a blind eye to the illegal recruitment and trafficking of comfort women within Japan. See Maeda, Akira (2018). Insight on the Issues: Guilty Verdicts for the Traffickers of Comfort Women—The Shizuoka and Nagasaki Incidents. In: Rumiko Nishino, Puja Kim, and Akane Onozawa, eds. Denying the Comfort Women: The Japanese State's Assault on Historical Truth, London: Routledge, pp. 87-90.
31 In 1927, wary of international criticism, Japan lifted its reservation, nominally raising the legal age to 21 in line with the 1921 anti-trafficking convention. In fact, however, Japan's licensing system was never brought into line with the anti-trafficking law and retained the age of 18 as its criterion.
32 Kokumin Junketsu Dōmei [National Purity League] (1936). Haishō ketsugi ichiran (List of prefectures adopting resolutions for the abolition of state prostitution), September, and Kakuseikai [Purity Society] (1938). Haishō ketsugi ichiran (List of resolutions for the abolition of state prostitution, excerpt), September. These documents are reproduced in Suzuki, Y., ed. (1998). Nihon josei undō shiryō shūshū (Compendium of documents relating to the Japanese women's movement). Vol. 9 (Human rights and the abolition of prostitution, Part 2). Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan, pp. 388-398, 398-401.
33 By the end of the Asia-Pacific War in 1945, 15 prefectures (Gunma, Saitama, Akita, Nagasaki, Aomori, Toyama, Mie, Miyazaki, Ibaraki, Kagawa, Ehime, Tokushima, Tottori, Ishikawa, and Wakayama) had prohibited the licensing system. The abolition movement organ Kakusei (Purity), published in Tokyo by the Kakuseikai (Purity Society) from 1911 to 1945, traces this development. In 1995, Fuji Shuppan reprinted the entire series in 33 volumes.
34 Onozawa, A. (2010), pp. 143-48.
35 League of Nations (1934). Summary of the Report to the Council. Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East, Geneva: League of Nations (CTFE 606), February 20, pp. 12, 17.
36 League of Nations (1934), p. 10.
37 League of Nations (1934), pp. 24-25.
38 Onozawa (2010), pp. 153-79. Looking at the European campaign to prohibit trafficking in women, we find many problems. For example, the movement was partially motivated by the desire to protect the virtue of “girls from good families.” The post-World War I colonial powers set out to abolish licensed prostitution in their colonies largely for the sake of appearances. Conversely, Japan outlawed neither advance cash payments, nor the licensing of prostituted women and concessionaires, nor compulsory medical exams. As we have seen, it maintained all of these onerous practices, both in the home islands and in its colonies and overseas mandates. Just as European countries were proceeding to ban legalized prostitution (whatever their reasons for doing so), Japan distinguished itself by heading in the opposition direction, rapidly expanding the domestic licensing system to its Korean colony following the 1910 annexation of that country.
39 See the discussion in Onozawa (2010), pp. 200-01, 213.
40 Naimushō [Home Ministry], ed. (1931). Fujin Jidō Baibai Jitchi Chōsa Kaigi gijiroku: Tōyō ni okeru Fujin Jidō Baibai Jitchi Chōsa Iin —Rokugatsu 12, 13,16. Tokyo Naimudaijin Kantei ni okeru Chōsakakaigi gijiroku yōyaku (Summary of minutes of the Committee on Matters concerning the Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East: by members of the Committee at the Home Office in Tokyo, June 12, 13, 16). Vol. 3. Tokyo: Naimushō, p. 63 [Available at: Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan].
41 Naimushō (1931). Summary of Minutes, pp. 93-94.
42 Naimushō (1931). Summary of Minutes, p. 63.
43 See Naimushō (1932). Tōyō e no Fujin oyobi Jidō Baibai Kakuchō Jitchi Chōsa: Nihon ni kansuru hōkoku (Enquiry into the Spread of Traffic in Women and Children in the East: report on Japan). July 1. Tōkyō: Naimushō, pp. 15, 21-22, 37, 47-48, and Naimushō (1932). Koksai Renmei Fujin Jidō Baibai Chōsa Iinkai no Nihon ni kansuru hōkokusho ni taisuru Teikoku Seifu ikensho (The Imperial Government's position paper on the Japan report by the League of Nations Commission of Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East). August, pp. 1-2, 4-6, 18-20. These documents are included in Kokusai Renmei fujin jidō mondai ikken: Tōyō ni okeru Fujin Baibai Jitchi Chōsa no ken (Honpō kankei chōsa hōkokusho narabi ni Teikoku ikensho)[A matter pertaining to the question of the League of Nations enquiry into trafficking in women and children: the Enquiry into Traffic in Women and Children in the East (Enquiry report on Japan together with the Imperial Government's position paper)] Available at: Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. See also Kokusai Renmei Jimukyoku Tokyo Shikyoku [Tokyo Office, Japan Section of the League of Nations], ed. Kokusai Renmei Tōyō Fujin Jidō Chōsa Iinkai hōkokusho gaiyō (Outline of the report by the League of Nations Commission on Women and Children in the East). March 15, 1933, pp. 1-27. This document is included in the collection by Fuji Shuppan, ed. (2013): Baibaishun mondai shiryō shūsei: senzenki (Compendium of documents relating to the problem of prostitution and trafficking: prewar period), Vol. 21, pp.192-198.
44 Naimushō Keihokyoku [Police Affairs Bureau, Home Ministry] (1935). Kōshō seido taisaku (Countermeasures for licensed prostitution). September. Reprinted in Suzuki, Y., ed. (1998). Nihon josei undō shiryō shūshū (Compendium of documents relating to the Japanese women's movement). Vol. 9 (Human rights/abolition of prostitution, Part 2). Tōkyō: Fuji Shuppan, pp. 303-08.