Talk:Comfort women/Archive 1

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It really happend, they were all Prisoners and forced to obey . It is Japanese culture. It will not change until we all accept it happened and stopped the National Denial.

I am pretty sure that all of these women where raped. My grandfather was in the war and he said all the women where whores he raped and did not care. Im pretty confident about this, there is real proof that women where abused to have sex with soldiers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.27.238.242 (talk • contribs) 17:16, March 19, 2007 (UTC).

• Your information is hearsay, you have not witnessed anything yourself. How many of these women did your grandfather actually meet? Why should I believe your grandfather more than the women who have told what happened to them? Japanese officers have been tried and convicted for exactly the things you 'are pretty confident' did not happen. Japanese and foreign scholars have written about several other cases. Wouldn't you agree that it is rather shameful to call even a single woman who has been raped a whore without a thorough investigation of the facts? The ladies who have come forward had the courage to give their name. At present, you and your grandfather remain hidden. -- ♥ Stuart LaJoie → overleg 13:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly agreed with User:StuartLaJoie. User:84.27.238.242, please take the time to educate yourself about this delicate topic. You may be causing pain to others without realizing it. It sounds like there is a lot more truth left for you to discover. Joie de Vivre 18:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The statement on top of this page "all whores" is libel: [[1]] Wikipedia policy says: "For this reason, all contributors should recognize that it is their responsibility to ensure that material posted on Wikipedia is not defamatory. It is Wikipedia policy to delete libellous material when it has been identified." I believe this also holds for talk pages, doesn't it. It specifially defames (among many others) the following known survivors: http://www1.jca.apc.org/vaww-net-japan/english/womenstribunal2000/participants_survivors.html and implies the following witnesses are liars: http://www1.jca.apc.org/vaww-net-japan/english/womenstribunal2000/participants_expert.html ; http://www1.jca.apc.org/vaww-net-japan/english/womenstribunal2000/participants_japanese.html

This statement should be hidden from the talk page. Crabclaw 12:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Crabclaw, I understand your argument and I could even add some names to your list. But I have chosen not to delete the statement and only to ask some questions. Make a reasonable analysis of the statement. Does it really reveal anything defamatory on the survivors? Or does it in fact show us a lot about this person and his grandfather? What can we learn from the fact that the person making this post hides his name and is unable to answer pertinent questions? This statement is quite informative, in a way probably not intended by our anonymous poster. Hiding it might be more beneficial for the poster and his grandfather than for the survivors. In Wikipedia. history literally cannot be rewritten at will. You have to live with what you have done. So you better think before you act and consider what it means to other people. Maybe the statement is very relevant for the subject in yet another way...

♥ Stuart LaJoie → overleg 23:05, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Wartime currency

Comfort women/Archive 1

日本軍用手票 (in Chinese) (in Japanese)
Unit
Symbol	¥‎
Denominations
Subunit
100	sen
Banknotes	1 sen, 5 sen, 50 sen, ¥1, ¥5, ¥10, ¥100
Coins	none
Demographics
User(s)	Areas occupied by Japan during World War II
Issuance
Central bank	Ministry of War of Japan

There should be no confusion between Japanese yen and Japanese military yen. Japanese yen and Japanese military yen are not exchangeable. When Japanese army confisticated goods or services in occupied area, they just handed out military yen note which was worth toilet paper. Imperial Japanese government circulated vast amount of military yen notes which was not accetable inside Japan proper to extort labors and services for free in occupied areas and also to protect Japanese economy.

Those in occupied area didnot have freedom to refuse military yen note from Japanese soldiers. If they refused, what could you expect except bayonet or bullet?

I think that this very clever and convenient system prevented economic collapse of Japan after WWII since Japanese government refused to pay for vast amount of Japanese military yen.

In short, Japanese Army enjoyed everything for free in occupied areas220.76.64.71 13:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

You are misunderstanding about Japanese military yen. They had availableness and had purchase before 1945.9. And they were able to convert to "Japanese Yen", before the 1945.9, although many problems were there in this issue after Japnese defeat in the war. It was a material of the same nature as Allied Military Currency which U.S. floated in World War II. Tropicaljet 07:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Japanese yen was in short supply in occupied area. It is similar to this kind of ad "I'll sell my Ipod for 10 cents, but currently out of stock"

• Of cause, Japanese yen was in short supply in occupied area, so they issued Japanese military yen in the area. Complexion of the war was unpredictable, so Japanese Army issued it in a flexible and impromptu manner. It was same to Allied Military Currency which U.S. issued in World War II. Tropicaljet 09:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• As I said there was huge difference between Japanese Imperial Army's credibility and US Army's credibility. Do you think that North Korean government and US government have the same credibility? Check Moodys, there are huge differences among dirfferent countries

• According to basic economics 101, when Japanese yen was in short supply, the value should go up. when there were abundant supply of Japanese military yen, devaluation ensued.128.134.207.82 10:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The followings are from an article about Japanese military yen in Wikipedia.[[2]]

"Since the military yen was not backed by gold, and did not have a specific place of issuance, the military yen could not be exchanged for Japanese yen. Forcing local populations to use the military yen officially was one of the ways the Japanese government could dominate the local economies. ... On 6 September 1945, the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that all military yen became void. Overnight the military yen literally became useless pieces of paper."220.76.64.71 14:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The Japanese government forcibly made Hong Kong residents trade in their Hong Kong Dollars, gold, foreign currencies and various other stocks and shares certificates for Japanese currency and vouchers used by the Japanese army (hereafter referred to as Military Yen) as the only legal curency in Hong Kong. People who were found to be using Hong Kong Dollars or other foreign currencies were severely punished by the Japanese Army some were even executed.[[3]]

The Japanese army evacuated from Hong Kong in the autumn of 1945 and the Military Yen became worthless paper overnight. Many residents were bankrupted and some became beggars while others starved to death. The legacy left many families destroyed, resulting in widows and orphans relying on community assistance to the present day.

During the Hong Kong occupation the Japanese government transported the forcibly exchanged Hong Kong Dollars to Macau to buy material, gold, foreign currencies, precious metals, and other coins to ship back to Japan to develop the country.

Hong Kong residents have petitioned the Japanese government for decades for compensation, seeking to exchange the Military Yen for Hong Kong Dollars. The Japanese government however used the San Francisco Peace Treaty as a way to shrug off all their responsibilities.[[4]Enola Gay in Hiroshima 08:22, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The existence proof of kidnapping

I'll show the newspapers by Dong-A Ilbo.

Date and Year	Source	Picuture
30/06/1933	Dong-A Ilbo(Korean Newspaper)	A girl kidnapped on the road
5/5/1930	Dong-A Ilbo(Korean Newspaper)	A girl forced prostitution
15/03/1936	Dong-A Ilbo(Korean Newspaper)	A Virgin girl and kidnappers
04/12/1938	Dong-A Ilbo(Korean Newspaper)	Many virgin girls were trafficked
31/08/1938	Dong-A Ilbo(Korean Newspaper)	Over 100 virgin girls were kidnapped

--Lulusuke 02:41, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I am afraid these articles show that abducting girls for prostitution was a wide spread crime in Korea, but show no relation to comfort women. My translation may not be accurate, but

1st article headline: A girl abducted on the road, sold to prostitution middleman, a man and a woman arrested

2nd article: Forced to prostitute, police arrested criminals

3rd article: Man-buyers thrive in villages; abduct girls by false employment talk, one arrested

4th article: Girls abducted, sold to Manchuria, criminals arrested

5th article: Unethical middlemen thrive, village girls abducted, more then 100 victims 218.216.99.67 12:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

218.216.99.67 wrote show no relation to comfort women

Why ?

Do you read the following offcial document ? These girls were goin to the brothel for Japanese military.

Therefore Japanese goverment measured against these crimes.

on Kinnaping girls under the wartime

Source: 時局利用婦女誘拐被疑事件ニ関スル件 政府調査従軍慰安婦 関係資料集成 第1巻 1938.2.7 龍溪書舎 --Lulusuke 15:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The document Lulusuke attached is a report made by the Governor of Wakayama prefecture in Japan addressed to the Chief of Police Bureau of the Interior Ministry of Japan, written in Japanese language. The report reads as follows. "On the alleged case of abduction of a woman using current matters: Feb. 7, 1937; aforementioned crime occurred in the area of Shimonobe police department of Wakayama prefecture, and the results of the investigation are as follows which I report." Only the front page of the report was attached by Lulusuke.

The five newspaper articles Lulusuke attached to his previous comment are about five abduction crimes occurred in Korea. I hope he will explain how the crime in Wakayama relates to the five crimes in Korea and eventually to comfort women.61.24.66.192 16:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Lulusuke: Since you are good at Korean language, would you please translate one of your five newspaper articles, so that we can see how the article relates the crime to comfort women.61.24.66.192 17:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Women's Tribunal and other Efforts at Redress Section missing

http://www1.jca.apc.org/vaww-net-japan/english/backlash/whydowesue.html#02 Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery

in 2000 reviewed the existing evidence up to that date and heard testimony in line with international law, took 1 year to review the evidence and render a verdict. one can note criticisms of the tribunal, but it has been widely reviewed and considered sound by UN agencies and international law experts.

Its also part of the ongoing debate not least because NHK self-censored a program about it in response to pressure from right-wing groups and 'general comments' by now Prime Minister Abe. in case anyone wants to contest this too: This was proven in recent court trial, and in fact Abe admits he made the comments and was invited to talk to NHK execs about it, but he says this was not a censorship attempt. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070307a6.html www.japantimes.co.jp/weekly/ed/ed20070210a1.htm the verdict was published also in asahi and mainichi newspapers on jan 30 this year.

- an article from the 'left' point of view, but well referenced: http://www.indymedia.org/en/2007/02/879825.shtml

It is kind of strange to have left this out here. seems like the efforts at getting teh information suppressed are continuing here at wikipedia!

- harvard asian quarterly article on the censorship issue by a scholar involved in the program http://www.asiaquarterly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=110&Itemid=5 Crabclaw 11:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

As a matter of the fact, Rieko Ikeda one of the masterminds of the trial is also a NHK producer. The NHK was aware of the neutrality issue of this program. Abe "was invited to talk to NHK execs about it" AFTER the show has been broadcast. This is a difficult issue. 58.183.10.46 12:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This trial was a laughable kangaroo court that convicted the dead man Hirohito without defense attorney. And the NHK program was produced by a member of the committee for the trial. How can it be neutral? Ikedanobuo 12:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

UserIkedanobu-san, look, whatever the details, I am saying this is an important part of the 'controversy' that should be noted in the main article. User:58.183.10.46, your statement "Abe "was invited to talk to NHK execs about it" AFTER the show has been broadcast." is incorrect, please read the tokyo high court verdict (surely not a 'kangaroo court') and the newspapers cited above. Did you not know that or are you deliberately trying to spread disinformation? Ikedanobu, also please furnish evidence for your statement that the program was 'produced' by a member of the committee for the trial. You can write whatever you want on your blog, but 'laughable kangaroo court' is not a term appropriate to wikipedia, the neutral term is a 'people's court'. its credibility people can judge for themselves by looking at the list of people involved and their credentials -http://www1.jca.apc.org/vaww-net-japan/english/womenstribunal2000/participants_jud.htmlCrabclaw 12:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Please help me understand your thinking: Why do you spend so much energy defaming these women? And why do you continue to cast doubt on something you yourself know is basically true? Ugly things happen in war, we all know that. You know quite well that even if you leave room for exaggeration, there is little doubt to the fact that there was coercion involved. Men were forced into labor in the occupied territories, so why assume that it was different for women? You keep thinking it damages Japan's honor. What damages Japan's honor is for the prime minister to act so rude, unyielding and unkind. The post-war German state has apologized for its predecessor state's war crimes and made huge reparations. Germany has actually gained high status, respect and power in the world by doing so. The government has nothing to win by acting like they are. Would be better even to say -maybe its true, maybe not, but let's be magnanimous and give them an apology and even some money. It would help further reconciliation and co-operation. So please stop casting doubt on something no-one (even those people who you present as 'contesting the issues') seriously contests- the system existed and there was at least some degree of forced inducement involved. And also please stop presenting it as a 'japan vs. western point of view' . You know as well as me that many people in Japan would have no problem making a gesture of apology and reconciliation. The point of view you try to foreground here is that of a minority who tries to ratch up nationalism by spreading disinformation and misframing the situation. Crabclaw 12:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I bet User Ikedanobuo is a double agent working for countries hostile to Japan, perhaps North Korea. He is really trying to make Japan look ugly.220.76.64.71 12:23, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

other Sources of Information missing

2003 reports to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of violence against women: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/29sess.htm:

1. Japanese government official report p.16 details japanese official efforts at "atonement": http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N98/355/16/IMG/N9835516.pdf?OpenElement

2. shadow report criticizing the governmental efforts in detail by NGO VAWW-net: http://www1.jca.apc.org/vaww-net-japan/english/whats_new/shadow_report_CEDAW.PDF "The Judges of the Tribunal also noted that Japan remains under a continuing obligation to acknowledge and disclose the truth of crimes against humanity and war crimes, and that it had not fulfilled this obligation in regards to the ‘comfort women.'"

- VAWW-net homepage: http://www1.jca.apc.org/vaww-net-japan/english/ Crabclaw 11:44, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The existence proof of military comfort women

Now Japanese right wing disallows the existence of military comfort women. But there exists a smoking-gun evidence of military comfort women. See This!.

(A) Wanted: military comfort women

• Destination(行先): Unit XX's brothel
• Qualification requirements:(募集資格) Age 18-30 , who are in robust health
• Starting and Deadline date(募集期日):27 Octobe-8 November.
• Departure date(出発日): Around 11 November
• Contract and treatment(契約及待遇): We decide all at our job interview.
• Number of Adoptor(募集人員):tens of people.
• For applicant(希望者): Contuct and come to the next address
• Contact address: Mr. Ho(허)
  

Chosun Inn(朝鮮旅館), 195, 樂園(낙원)町 Chongno-ku(鐘路区), Seoul(京城府). L-2645

Mae-il Sin-bo (毎日新報,매일신보）No.13372, 27th Oct. 1944.

The above recruitment advertising for Military Comfort Women on the Japanese Governor-General_of_Korea's newspaper. --Lulusuke 09:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

"Now Japanese right wing disallows the existence of military comfort women." I have heard of Japanese rightist who claim that the comfort women were "voluntary" prostitutes, but I have never heard of rightists who claimed that comfort women did not exist. Source please. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.163.12.72 (talk) 06:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC).

Dear Lulusuke: You wrote the ad was on the Japanese Governor-General_of_Korea's newspaper. But judging from what you wrote, the name of the paper was "Mae-il Sin-bo". The same ad appears in your comment under "The truth" of this talk page, in which you say the ad was on the Korean newspaper "Everyday hot news". Is this the name of Governor-General's paper?

The job ad in the left of the ad for comfort women is one for workers at a mining company, and the one further left is one for workers at printing company. Both companies seem private. Are they really on Governor-General's paper?

One more question. In the comfort women ad, the word military in the headline is put in quotation marks (the L-shape and reverse L-shaped marks) in original language, but you omitted them in the translation. It should have been "Military" Comfort Women Wanted. Don't you think the word was put in quotation marks because the facility was not run by the military?61.24.66.192 20:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

This means that the comfort women were merely foreigner prostitutes. A lot of prostitutes of Chinese and the South Korean are working at the advanced country now. Why? Is the government of the advanced country compelling them? NO! They are working for money. The serviceman in Japan paid a lot of money. There might have been a lot of comfort woman slaughtered like current prostitutes has many risks. However, they were obtaining money any more. So some Chinese and Korean women might have applied to the above advertisement. So the comfrot women is merely prostitutes.

Anyway, Is Mr. Heo a Japanese? 58.183.10.46 19:57, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

"Ho" is not a Japanese name, so he's a korean. Maybe Japan-bashers want to say that he's a Japanese pretending to be a Korean, though. Whatever, what this evidence shows us is that comfort women were well-paid and that they were anything like "sex slaves". ps: if you want to label me with words like "history white-washer", just go on. I don't care. I'm speaking my opinion based on a trustful evidence.

This is the evidence that the Ianfu were the commercial prostitutes who were paid very lavishly. Their wage were 300 yen per month, twenty times higher than average soldiers.

You are wrong. Japanese yen and Japanese military yen are totally different.

Comfort women/Archive 1

日本軍用手票 (in Chinese) (in Japanese)
Unit
Symbol	¥‎
Denominations
Subunit
100	sen
Banknotes	1 sen, 5 sen, 50 sen, ¥1, ¥5, ¥10, ¥100
Coins	none
Demographics
User(s)	Areas occupied by Japan during World War II
Issuance
Central bank	Ministry of War of Japan

Imperial Japanese government circulated vast amount of Japanese military yen which is worth nothing inside Japan proper to extort labors and services for free in occupied areas. When Japanese army confisticated goods or services in occupied area, they just handed out military yen note which was worth toilet paper.

The followings are from an article about Japanese military yen in Wikipedia.

"Since the military yen was not backed by gold, and did not have a specific place of issuance, the military yen could not be exchanged for Japanese yen. Forcing local populations to use the military yen officially was one of the ways the Japanese government could dominate the local economies. ... On 6 September 1945, the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that all military yen became void. Overnight the military yen literally became useless pieces of paper."

The Japanese government forcibly made Hong Kong residents trade in their Hong Kong Dollars, gold, foreign currencies for Japanese military yen as the only legal curency in Hong Kong. People who were found to be using Hong Kong Dollars or other foreign currencies were severely punished by the Japanese Army some were even executed.[[5]]

On 6 September 1945, the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that all military yen became void.

Many residents were bankrupted and some became beggars while others starved to death. The legacy left many families destroyed, resulting in widows and orphans relying on community assistance to the present day.

During the Hong Kong occupation the Japanese government transported the forcibly exchanged Hong Kong Dollars to Macau to buy material, gold, foreign currencies, precious metals, and other coins to ship back to Japan to develop the country.

Hong Kong residents have petitioned the Japanese government for decades for compensation, seeking to exchange the Military Yen for Hong Kong Dollars. The Japanese government however used the San Francisco Peace Treaty as a way to shrug off all their responsibilities.[[6]

Enola Gay in Hiroshima 23:26, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• You are misunderstanding about Japanese military yen. They had availableness and had purchase before 1945.9. And they were able to convert to "Japanese Yen", before the 1945.9, although many problems were there in this issue after Japnese defeat in the war. It was a material of the same nature as Allied Military Currency which U.S. issued in World War II. Tropicaljet 08:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Value of certain currency depends on the credibility of the issuing entity. I don't think that Japanese Army had the same level of credibility of Allied forces. Would you exchange your US dollar with North Korean curreny according to official exchange rate set by North Korean government? If you do, you will become a beggar128.134.207.82 08:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• You are misunderstandeing what I said. I said only that it was a material of the same nature as Allied Military Currency which U.S. issued in World War II, not that it had same value. The Japanese military yen could be exchanged to Japanese yen, that's all. Tropicaljet 08:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Japanese yen was in short supply in occupied area. It is similar to this kind of ad "I'll sell my Ipod for 10 cents, but currently out of stock"

• Of cause, Japanese yen was in short supply in occupied area, so they issued Japanese military yen in the area. Complexion of the war was unpredictable, so Japanese Army issued it in a flexible and impromptu manner. It was same to Allied Military Currency which U.S. issued in World War II. Tropicaljet 09:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• As I said there was huge difference between Japanese Imperial Army's credibility and US Army's credibility. Do you think that North Korean government and US government have the same credibility? Check Moodys, there are huge differences among dirfferent countries
• According to basic economics 101, when Japanese yen was in short supply, the value should go up. when there were abundant supply of Japanese military yen, devaluation ensued.128.134.207.82 10:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Yoshida admitted he had said lie.

Yoshida's story was denied by a journalist 許栄善 of Cheju Sinmun(済州新聞) on August 14, 1989. According to that report,

Coming the 44th years of liberation, the record, that the 205 women of Cheju Island were taken out to the comfort women in Japanese colony age, was published, and is given a big impact. However, there is no testimony of support and it produces a sensation.

(Omission)

Inhabitants say "It is unreliably", and are presenting the doubt strongly to the reliability of this writing. A 85-year-old old woman said "If as many as 15 persons were taken out from our village of only 250 households, it would be a big matter. However, There was not its fact in those days."

According to Japanese magazine "Shokun!(諸君!)" on November, 1998, Yoshida said "I who was used by specialists of human right was wrong."

According to Japanese magazine "Weekly Shincho(週刊新潮)" on May 2-9, 1996, Yoshida said "It write to hide the facts, and to blend their opinions -- the news papers also do. (So, I may do also.) It cannot be helped to be inconsistent." Objectman 07:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes. In spite of yoshida's testimony, Prof. Yoshimi, is said to have written in his book, Jūgun ianfu wo meguru 30 no uso to shinjitsu (30 Truths And Lies On Comfort Women), Ōtsuki-Shoten, 1997, as follows: It has not been verified that there was impressments of "comfort women" like slave-hunting in Korea and Taiwan. (p. 24) I am going to make sure that it is surely written before I add this to the article. 58.183.10.46 21:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for Further Info

I'm doing some research on the issue right now. In regards to this quote: "In 1990 the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery, with help from Japanese organizations, filed suit"

Can the original writer give me some examples of the organizations in Japan that are assisting with their case? Are they cause lawyers? Korean Organizations in Japan? --Jayc12 01:31, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

US and South Korean use

Recently added: "US had same system in occupied Japan after World War II, and it was stopped by Eleanor Roosevelt. Even South Korea had same system in Korean War and Vietnam War."

References: "

• Molasky, Michael S. American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa, Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0415191947 ISBN 0415260442

• Moon, Katharine H. S. Sex Among Allies, Columbia University Press, 1997. ISBN 0231106424"

The online reference seems to discuss organised prostitution, which is not quite the same thing as CW. Am I missing something? Markalexander100 09:51, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

We can know about RAA or Japanese Comfort Women Center for Occupation Force here.

Most of them are wrote in anti-Japanese context. Please read facts among political words.

Also this page says about it too. But "When USA occupation forces to Japan came to Tokyo, what they said first was 'Prepare comfort women club for military officers' Do you know this ?? They loved this club much for long years." is incorrect. It was prepared from Japanese side, stopped in 1946 not "long years", and is not only for officers but also soldiers.

Here is report on Korean kidnapped Comfort Women in Korean War. But it is Japanese text page of Korean News Paper, JoongAng Ilbo. Unfortunately, this page is not accepted machine translation.

Comfort Women system of other nations including South Korea is here.

This is machine translation of a Japanese page. I'm searching English page. Language barrier is serious problem among us.Kadzuwo 12:52, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Language barrier

"Language barrier is serious problem among us." I agree. :) Maybe this would be a better place to put the material, in Japanese? Is there an online reference for a US or Korean government program of rape? Isolated acts of individuals, or paid prostitution, are not the same thing. (I've reverted your edits until we sort something out). Markalexander100 02:18, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

RAA was prepared by Japanese side in just same manner of Japanese Comfort Women system. Why don't you understand it? Korean systems are much worst, according to _Korean_ scholars. you can read Japanese pages in English thru machine translations.Kadzuwo 10:30, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Kadzuwo, please feel free to post links to Japanese sources here -- some of us can read them without translation. Jpatokal 02:35, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Wow! Good news!! I recoｍmend a book これでは困る韓国 ISBN 4879195707. This is conversations of two Korean Scholars.

Now, "us"? Are You a group?Kadzuwo 11:30, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And by the way, the single link on the Japanese page isn't very neutral, with titles like "The Lie of Forced Comfort Women" (慰安婦強制連行のウソ) and criticisms of sources with terms like "silly little book" (インチキ本)... Jpatokal 02:59, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't know it. I think just neutral is very difficult about such problems. So, we must see both sides like a good judge. Anyway always we must remember anyone can be a liar occasionally.Kadzuwo 11:30, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Now, is :慰安婦強制連行のウソ "The Lie of Forced Comfort Women"? It is transated as "The lie of comfort-women forcible taking" by my reccomended machine translation.Kadzuwo 11:30, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't know, I would personally translate that as "The Lie of Forced Comfort Women" too. I haven't read the article, but it seems to be fairly straitforward. --theKiyote

Saying that RAA women were forced into the job is a minority view, it's your job to produce evidence for it. In particular, do you have a source to back up the bit about "virgins"? Jpatokal 09:52, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Like most of Korean comfort women, they were persuaded in situation they can not say "No". I know a case of Korean comfort women said "No", she did only non-sexual works like laundry for other women.

Please see Japanese page of Recreation and Amusement Association. it has some reference books.Kadzuwo 11:30, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Removed the line regarding official settlement of the comfort women issue since 1) no source was given; 2) if the issue were settled, the following sentence about victims still seeking official compensation and refusing the semi-/unofficial compensation does not make any sense; 3) the issue of comfort women has quite obviously not been officially settled since it is an ongoing obstacle to South Korean-Japanese relations; 4) the statement attributes the settlement to the 1965 normalisation treaty, the text of which is available here on Wikipedia, and that treaty is deafeningly silent on the issue.

AFAIK (I'm not the one who wrote the line) the Japanese government's view is that the 1965 normalization treaty closed all outstanding issues between Japan and S. Korea. Many South Koreans obviously disagree on a personal level, but I'm not sure what the SK government's official view on this is...? Jpatokal 12:44, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It seems the 1965 treaty was part of a package which included an "Agreement of Economic Cooperation and Property Claims". I've added that, and made it clear that this is the Japanese position. We also need to do something about the headings. :) Markalexander100 01:51, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think that's fair. In answer to the question above, the South Korean government's official view is that the treaty was not a settlement of all issues, though they also do not mention comfort women specifically as an outstanding issue. The entire comfort women issue has been conspicuously avoided by both governments and is effectively confined to non- or 'semi'-governmental (as mentioned in the article) activism in both countries.

---

To put Comfort women under the category of prostitutes is not accurate. They do not get monetary returns for what they are forced into doing. Mandel 11:40, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm that depends. {Prostitute = Paid Sex Worker} is correct and incorrect. Prostitute could simply means women who work on brothel or women who provide sexual service. Otherwise, used of words such as "Forced Prostitution" won't happen. Having said it, in the context of "comfort women" destinction of "forced prostitution" would be unambigious and non-PC so will leave at that. FWBOarticle

I agree that by the dictionary definition (just one online example)and by common English usage a "women who works in a brothel" providing sex acts is QED a prostitute. It doesn't matter whether or not they are paid by each "customer" or indeed, even paid at all.

On the other hand, the word "prostitute" has pejorative connotations far beyond it's dictionary definition. Especially given the subject at hand, it might be wiser to adopt more neutral language when possible. "Woman who works in a military brothel" doesn't have nearly the bite that "prostitute" does. Another possibly more neutral expression would be "sex worker".

On a somewhat related subject, that may be somewhat obscured by the very term "comfort women"--were there no, none, zero, nada boys or men involved as sex workers in this military brothel system? That seems beyond belief, given the wide extent of the system and relatively large numbers of people involved. If any such men or boys were involved in this system, it would seem that they deserve at least a small mention in an article on the subject.

Bhugh 03:52, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I understand it is difficult to edit the document in Japanese, so ask Japanese if you are confused. Don't delete the source in Japanese if you can't read it. 日本語が読めないなら削除するな。Do you understand? Ikedanobuo 14:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Major Rewrite

Done major rewrite. Feel free to correct my engrish or any NPOV problems. I'm going to bed. Good night. FWBOarticle 05:47, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I probably need rewrite the last section. It was basically attempt to put togeter info like RAA or Korean Military Brothel system. It is pretty much Me-steal-but-others-steal-too-so-I-should-get-off argument. I will try to do better contextualisation. FWBOarticle 22:57, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The comfort women question is a very complex issue. I should know I've been working on it for the last five years ( more specifically on the issue as it is presented in the English speaking newspapers of Korea). What strikes me in this comment page is that people try to demonstrate that one systeme was worse than another . Prostitution as a whole is horrible; forced prostitution even more. Now to make it really clear the japanese governement acknowledges the suffering of the comfort women, go check the MOFAT website, but do not want to directly compensate them (they want to establish private funds publicly financed). Offers have been made since the 1990's, but they were dismissed as "too little too late" by the Comfort Women. What they really want is an official apology and enough money to live out their lives decently. It is striking to see that most of the victims still living are in poverty and subsist (in Korea) thanks to the governement money. Which at any rate is far from enough. I personnaly believe that the women are victimized a second time by the debate on wether or not they were forcefully drafted. You may check horrendous comments on Amazon.com where japanese readers bombastically dismiss any books that would cover the atrocities committed by their troops during WWII. This is not to say that the Japanese are brutes, my fellow Frenchmen were also commiting war crimes in Indochina and Algeria, and we have yet to put them on trial.

Odd statistics

The Japanese who subscribed in the licensed pleasure quarter made up 40%. Koreans made up 20% and the Chinese 10%. The woman who were forced to join in Japanese-occupied countries except Korea and China or the battlefield formed the remaining 40%.

Anybody find anything wrong with this? silsor 22:43, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Euphemesims

I daresay serve has an air of voluntarism about it. "Forced to work as prostitutes" is more accurate.

Also, does the article mention the murders of the used-up ones? Some of my East Asian friends tell of soldiers placing 100 women in a cave and then blowing them all up with explosives. Are these mere rumors? -- Uncle Ed (talk) July 4, 2005 18:37 (UTC)

Dr. Ikuhiko Hata.

>However, Yoshida admitted afterward his confesses were not true, according to research of Dr. Ikuhiko Hata.

What is the foundation? That Yoshida admitted that his work had not been true is a forgery of the rightwing revisionists. Everton 01:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

---

Need to confirm information from Hata.

According to Irischang.net: "...failed to tell readers that Hata is not regarded as a serious scholar in Japan or the United States, very much because he is a regular contributor to ultra right-wing Japanese publications like Bungei Shunju..."

The article has several references to Hata. This article must be updated. Hunfe 06:43, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Wait a minute. Bungei Shunju is one of the most reputable monthly magazines in Japan and by no means "ultra right-wing". You can see that magazine in any bookstores and libraries throughout Japan. The magazine also hosts the famous "Akutagawa Prize" which is given to the auther of the best novel written by young writers in the year. Regular publication in Bungei Shunju is an honer, not a sign of "ultra right-wing". 61.24.66.192 18:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. one mention of Hata is more than enough. one should really know that there have been concerted right-wing efforts to suppress information about the comfort women issue in general and the Women;s Tribunal in particular. it seems that these efforts are continuing here, creating the impression that there is uncertainity about points few serious researchers contest. Kind of like how it used to be with global warming! Prof. Hata is not a credible major source, but a highly controversial scholar. His views should be placed in context, e.g. he is also a co-author of the infamous history textbook that caused such an uproar (against which history teachers associations in japan were also outraged and most schools dont use it). In any case, its not good to give the views of one radical scholar the same weight as the large number of resaerchers who disagree with his findings. its not neutrality if research not well corraborated is given the same space as the views of the academic mainstream.Crabclaw 11:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Mr. Hata is thought to be moderate maintenance in Japan. He values the original source, and his investigation is evaluated, "Become the standard of the discussion". It is a person criticized least in researchers even if the book review of Amazon is seen. However, to value the testimony, people like iris Chang will feel him a troublesome person. In Japanese Wikipedia, it is "秦郁彦" --Elementy 18:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Professor Hata is a famous historian known to put strong importance on proof. He did a lot of hearing from soldiers and 'comfort women' and visited foreign countries. So he could detect Yoshida's lie. His study is seen as most objective one and apparently is authority in this area. He also wrote part of official "Finacial History - from end of War to Reconciliation" by Minister of Finance Japan. Just not translated a lot, unfortunately. lssrt 08:52 16 March 2007(UTC)

Bobbybuilder, Taiwan, and vandalism

I wish that Bobbybuilder would stop marking his changes as "rv. vandalism". The changes he is reverting may or may not be correct, and they may or may not have been made in good faith, but it is clear that they are not vandalism.

-- Dominus 13:56, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Dominus, the matter has been explained before, yet someone deliberately reversed to the incorrect version. I think the first time is out of POV or ignorance, but doing that purposely for weeks then that should be called vandalism. Bobbybuilder 00:34, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

No, I disagree. That is not what vandalism is. Vandalism is an indisputably bad-faith change that is made as a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. What we have here is a disagreement about the facts of the matter. The person disagreeing with you may be stupid, wrong-headed, ill-informed, stubborn, or unreasonable, but that does not make them a vandal. And when you call it "vandalism" when it clearly is not, you weaken your own claim to be acting in good faith. -- Dominus 13:22, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Denying the fact that there were also comfort women from Taiwan is similar to denying there were Jews from Hungary got gassed in the concentration camp. Both are war crimes from WWII, both are indisputable facts. There are still Taiwanese comfort women alive at the moment for god sake. If you check the vandal's history, that person's belief belongs to the extreme right group in Taiwan. They deny the Japanese war crimes like Neo-nazis deny the Nazi war crimes. Again, the first time this person does so, you can educate him (let's look at the possibility that he failed his social science in elementary school), if he consistently doing so, then there is no doubt that this person wants to add "bad-faith changes" "to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia".

If you want to spin like that, please give me an example of vandalism that is not "a disagreement about the facts of the matter". It is disturbing to know some Taiwanese people deliberately deny Japanese war crimes during WWII, it is even more disturbing to see someone actually believes that's okey to do so. Bobbybuilder 22:23, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I am not disputing that there are comfort women from Taiwan. And I am not "spinning" anything. I am just saying that the changes are not vandalism, and you should not call them vandalism. Holocaust deniers are wrong also, but that does not make their changes vandalism. holocaust-denying changes should be reverted, but because they are incorrect, not because they are vandalism. Similarly, I agree with your reversions; my only objection is your use of the word "vandalism" to describe the changes you are reverting.

Here are some examples of vandalism that are not due to a disagreement about facts. [7] [8] [9] [10] I hope this helps make clearer to you what vandalism is.

Is it possible that our difficulties are caused by your unfamiliarity with English? I was surprised that you used the word "spin" to describe what I was saying. Like "vandalism", that is also an insulting and pejorative term, and it does not accurately describe what I was doing in my earlier message. I guess that you did not mean to insult me or to dismiss my point as being propagandistic and indended to deceive the public. Is this true? -- Dominus 13:53, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Are you trying to twist my words and say that I claimed you deceived the public? I was just curious about your motive for trying to reduce "hiding war crimes" into merely "a disagreement about the facts of the matter". By the way, he who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones. Even with my unfamiliarity with English, I still know intend has a t in it.

I think our difficulties are due to your definition of "bad faith changes" being different from mine, and if you are not too self-assured to open a dictionary and check, you may find that constently fabricate information falls into the category of "bad faith". Bobbybuilder 14:36, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not trying to twist your words. You used the word "spin" to describe something I said. "spin" in this context connotes deception; see Spin. I specifically said that I did not think you were trying to accuse me of this. I'm sorry you couldn't understand me. But I'm going to give up on this discussion because I think that your English is too poor and that you are too defensive to understand my point. I wish you good luck in your work on this article. -- Dominus 15:18, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I think you need someone to summarise the discussion for you because it seems like you are not smart enough to understand it. You were arguing the constent deletion was not out of "bad faith", and I corrected you on that, then you were "cherry picking" on my reply, and finally came up with the entire irrelevent argument about "the definition of spin" and "the English ability". I'm sorry that you have to assume everyone else's English is poor, and I believe that's your own insecurity talking. However, I do sympathise your situation: if I was getting bald, and my grasp in my first and only language wasn't as good as I thought, then I would be as insecure as you. I sincerely hope that you will find a solution for that.

By the way, you wrote "I guess that you did not", and I don't know since when does "I guess" equal to "I don't think", I believe that "I guess" is phrasing in a way that assumes unproven truths. Bobbybuilder 22:01, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

== A good presentation of this issue may be found in 'A Public Betrayed', by Adam Gamble and Takesato Watanabe. Washington, DC: Regnery Publ., 2004. Chapter: "Attacking Former Sex Slaves".

== I've decided to delete the exceprt " South Korea had a similar system during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The women who worked in those brothels were at least partially kidnapped sex slaves, as was the case with the Japanese" from the article after careful consideration. Isolated acts of individuals or paid prostitution should be distinguished from the mass sex slavery program practiced and by the Japanese government during World War II. Users Kadzuwo and Jpatokal failed to support their argument about the excerpt " South Korea had a similar system during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The women who worked in those brothels were at least partially kidnapped sex slaves, as was the case with the Japanese" by listing broken URLs and Japanese websites that contain speculation. There is no substntial (or actual) evidence that the South Korean Military headquarters set up brothels and kidnapped 100,000+ Vietnamese women to use them as sexual slaves.

Military brothels, human trafficking, and sexual slavery in context

This whole section has little or nothing to do with the opening paragraph:

Comfort women ..., or military comfort women ... is a euphemism for women who were forced to work as sex slaves in military brothels in Japanese-occupied countries during World War II.

So I am removing it as it makes the article unfocused and as the section does not carry citations it fails WP:V. If someone thinks that this information should be in Wikipedia (and the brothels that follow International peace keeping missions is probably worth one), then it should be in an article which focuses on this issue not this one.--Philip Baird Shearer 17:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm a fucking idiot

Changes

I made some changes attempting to make this thing read a little bit more an encyclopediac topic and less like some depravity perversion porno rant or political soapbox for either side.

I am neither Japanese nor Korean. For the record, my position within this realm is that we ought to focus on the sex crimes and abuses that are being committed today, that we can do something about, and not try to exploit ancient historical events that we can do nothing about.

There is more slavery and greater sex trafficing, including child sex trafficing, today than there has ever been in history.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4038249/ 195.82.106.244 02:58, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The focus of the article is on the Comfort women that were forced to work as sex slave in World War II, not sexual slavery in general and current state of sexual slavery. There is a seperate article on that. Deiaemeth 03:14, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Too much divergence from the Japanese language version

I would like to note that there are some differences between the Japanese version and this English version regarding this issue. Before determining the Japanese version to be false, please note the below:

The address made by the Japanese Army regarding so callled "abduction" of non-Japanese women into brothels is completely false. The original text reads:

「支那事変地ニ於ケル慰安所設置ノ為、内地ニ於テ之ガ従業婦等ヲ募集スルニ当リ、故ラニ軍部了解等ノ名義ヲ利用シ、為ニ軍ノ威信ヲ傷ツケ、且ツ一般民ノ誤解ヲ招ク虞アルモノ、或ハ従軍記者、慰問者等ヲ介シテ不統制ニ募集シ社会問題ヲ惹起スル虞アルモノ、或ハ募集ニ任ズル者ノ人選適切ヲ欠キ、為ニ募集ノ方法、誘拐ニ類シ警察当局ニ検挙取調ヲ受クル者アル等、注意ヲ要スル者少ナカラザルニ就テハ、将来是等ノ募集ニ当タリテハ、関係地方ノ憲兵及警察当局トノ連繋ヲ密ニシ、以テ軍ノ威信保持上、並ニ社会問題上、遺漏ナキ様配慮相成度、依命通牒ス。」

The text reads that the problem happens in recruitment of comfort women in the Japanese mainland by civilian middlemen, and it warns military units to take care that no such problems should rise, as it will damage the integrity of the armed forces. [11]

Also, in the discussion, someone claims that the comfort women were unpaid- this is a false accusasion. They were actually paid. [12]

Also, I doubt the wisdom of trusting South Korean sources regarding this issue too much before understanding South Korea's strong nationalistic policies.[13][14]

Everytime an ultra-nationalist revionist tries to deny past war crimes (i.e Nanking massacre, state of comfort women, etc.), a kitten dies. True story :-(. Deiaemeth 06:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I've got totally fed up with those who try to label their opponents with words like "ultra-nationalist", "history whitewasher", "revisionist" and so on. Don't disturb faithful discussion. If you have some opinion, try to find an evidence to support your theory. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.140.223.32 (talk) 11:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

Euphemism Revisited

I think the title Comfort Women is a euphemism for 'sex-slaves' or 'forced-prostitutes'. What do you think? Janviermichelle 05:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

The article specifically notes that the Comfort Women indeed is a euphemism, and many women were indeed worked as forced sex slaves. I think the article is pretty clear on that point. Deiaemeth 06:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Comfort Men?

I've heard of special units of comfort "men" existing to satiate the sexual desires of Japanese soldiers who were homosexuals, and I've found some interesting facts. Apparently, many boys were taken as sex slaves, especially from the Philippines. [15] There was even a movie based on such subjects [16]. I'm going to add a section on it soon, but its hard to find too much information on it online. Deiaemeth 06:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

There's an article by Rina Jimenez-David titled There were comfort gays, too on Philippine Daily Inquirer, Jan 27, 2000. googled it, but failed. Quotes from the article "Homosexuals were also used by the Japanese military in this way. Walter Dempster Jr. was working in Manila nightclubs as a cross-dressing entertainer during the war. While out walking one night dressed in women's clothes, Walter and his friends were taken to military headquarters where they were raped at least three times every day. " [17] Janviermichelle 07:26, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Wianbu (comfort women) were paid.

This is taken from "The Transformation of Sexual Work in 20th-Century Korea" Gender and Society, Vol. 9 No. 3, June 1995 pgs 310-327 by John Lie

"Although they were virtually sexual serfs, Wianbu were paid. Japanese women received 3 to 5 yen per intercourse, whereas Koreans received 1.5 to 2 yen."

He goes on to say that this matterered little, since the Japanese Yen became worthless after the war, but regardless, they were paid for their services. It should be noted that this only refers to the women institutionally integrated into the Japanese "comfort divisions" by the military, not women taken by force or through outside channels.

He cites Fumiko Kawada on this point from a 1987 article entitled Sekiga no ie: Chosen kara kita jugun ianfu. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo.

Read the cited sources in the article. Very little were paid, most were abducted against their will and brutally raped. Also please read an interesting excerpt above about a homosexual detachment of Comfort women (or Comfort men). Deiaemeth 08:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Comfort woman's salary from 慰安婦 in Japanese Wikipedia.------- One of the former comfort women did the restoration claim lawsuit of the postal savings 26,145 yen saved while it was starting work 2 and a half years. However, it was assumed that it had solved it by the Japan-South Korea claim and the agreement of economic cooperation that accompanied Japan-Korea Basic Relations Treaty, and lost a suit. --------Full general's salary at that time was about 6600 yen in year, and soldier's such as two salary was 72 yen a year. Hereafter, it can know the hugeness of the amount of money of 26,145 yen. --------Quotation end

It seems that the situation is different by the battlefield and time.--Elementy 16:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Full general in Imperial Japanese Army didnot need any mony. He could get anything if he flipped his finger. So, his finger was worth zillion dollars in today's standard. We should keep in mind that wartime Japan was not a democratic capitalistic country.

Japanese military bank note was worth nothing in a devastated wartime economy in occupied colonies and territories in which everything was controlled by military totalitarian governemt and Army.

Japanese yen and Japanese military yen are totally different.

Imperial Japanese government circulated vast amount of Japanese military yen which is worth nothing inside Japan proper to extort labors and services for free in occupied areas. When Japanese army confisticated goods or services in occupied area, they just handed out military yen note which was worth toilet paper.220.76.64.71 13:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The followings are from an article about Japanese military yen in Wikipedia.

"Since the military yen was not backed by gold, and did not have a specific place of issuance, the military yen could not be exchanged for Japanese yen. Forcing local populations to use the military yen officially was one of the ways the Japanese government could dominate the local economies. ... On 6 September 1945, the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that all military yen became void. Overnight the military yen literally became useless pieces of paper."

It is not significant. The war note was used for Japanese soldier's salary. They used it to pay to the comfort place, and as for them, management there was done, and, as a result, the manager paid the comfort woman the reward. Japanese army did not employ the comfort woman.

Comfort women's share seems to have been higher than the prostitute in a Japanese mainland. It is thought that this is different by the debt by the prepayment of the reward. Comfort womans planned to alternate in about one year. Of course, they planned to wipe out a debt, to save the war note in addition, to return to the hometown, and to exchange the war note for Japanese yen. It doesn't know whether the plan was able to be achieved enough up front. Elementy 14:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• I believe that Japanese military yen palyed a crucial rule in this systematic government fraud system.218.153.90.29 00:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

discussion in English

I request that this discussion be in English, the language of this Encyclopedia, so that all editors can follow what is being written about. Thanks Hmains 15:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

AWF to be closed March 2007

Found this link in the german version of this article, which otherwise is a lot less informative than the English or Japanese versions:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4202629.stm

131.130.146.6 20:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Protected

Please settle your differences at talk.

• 59.22.251.156: Please provide sources for your claim
• Dollarfifty: Please rebute them
• All participants, please respect WP:3RR. Try to find a compromise.

Give me a note, after the issue is settled and the article is ready to be unprotected abakharev 03:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, I changed the level of protection to semi-protect. 59.22.251.156 - Please provide sources before inserting challenged info abakharev 04:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Points of Contention in the article

Can someone explain to me what the points of contention in this article are? I'd like to help resolve the issues. Davidpdx 08:45, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA

This section Responsibility and compensation discusses only the South Korean victims/workers, that covers only 20% on the people involved. The info box has Korean and Chinese languages but what about Thai, Vietnamese. The article has and extensive list of references, I prefer to the use of online sites so that references can be checked. Gnangarra 12:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It is highly debateable, some might say even a blatant lie, to claim that only 20% of the sex slaves were from Korea just because a Japanese researcher said so.

Technicalities aside, the vast majority of the sex workers were from China and Korea, and so it is not surprising that there is not enough information among Wikipedians about Vietnamese or Thai responsibility and compensation. In addition, China and Japan have been very tense over this issue. China has refused to recognized anything less than a full apology from Japan, and Japan, likewise, has moved from dodgy admittance to complete denial. I am not completely sure of details, but the undiplomatic and nascent state of compensation and responsibility between China and Japan means it is not nearly as important as that between Korea and Japan.

Books are perfectly good references, some might even say better than online sources.

Have a good day :) --King 01:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Starved to Death

I have removed the following: "As the Japanese war effort suffered reversals and the military evacuated their positions in South-East Asia, non-Japanese comfort women were often left behind. Many comfort women starved to death on desert islands thousands of miles away from home. A few managed to make incredible treks thousands of miles across mainland Asia to return to their homes in Korea and northeastern China" since (1) where the Japanese withdrew from were occupied by the allied forces directly afterwards, thus the women were protected by the allied forces (eg. Imphal), (2) Most of the Japanese Army units were anyway not allowed to withdraw (eg. Okinawa, Iwo Jima, etc), (3) There was often no means of transport at all, thus soldiers starved to death along with the women (New Guinea), and (4) there is no such place as mainland Asia. --TokyoJapan 15:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Financial Matters

I have deleted Also, the issue of who caused the financial hardship on these families need to be evaluated. The Japanese government promoted Japanese businesses and heavily taxed the local colonies. This unfair situation caused people to either die of starvation or be sold in to prostitution since the claim of the Japanese occupation of, for example, Korea and Taiwan causing financial damages to the local population through taxation is not substanciated. --TokyoJapan 15:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

why is my contribution deleted ? why is it vandalism?

Is merely stating the fact taht this article on comfort omwne cites too many Japanese sources? Im trying to reduce the amount of bias that can be found in this article.

Isn't it natural that most of the sources are from Japan when we're talking about Japanese military? We should argue whether each source is trustful or not from scientific and neutral point of view. Do you want to say that Japan is always on the side of evil and not trustful or something? You mean Korean sources are always trustful? Come on!!!

Page protected

Until the two sides can work out their differences and come to a consensus on what changes (if any) should be made to this article, this page will remain protected. There have been too many editors working in concert to avoid various policies, and too much POV-pushing back and forth on this article. This needs to stop now. Discuss things here first, and then we'll see about unprotecting the article. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 07:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Incredible language barriers and nationalism on both sides prompts me to believe this will forever remain protected.

However, in the good spirit of discourse I'd like to propose that we look at sources authored by people with no part in this nationalistic charade. I'm a bit busy at this moment, but I have faith that there are studies done by foreign countries about this tragedy. I know I have just joined the debate, but I feel very strongly that this subject matter deserves a fair, informational article on Wikipedia. --King 01:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Is this really an A-class article?

This article has been listed as A class, it failed GA for having significant pieces of information ommitted from the article. The article in the lead says the following ethnic break down of the comfort women is 40 % Japanese, 20 % Koreans, 10 % Chinese, with others making up the remaining 30 %(uncited), yet the article only covers the event surrounding Korean women, that leaves 80% of the article still to be completed. The article is currently has on going edit wars over the information and its presentation. To be A class the article needs to be . At the stage where it could at least be considered for featured article status it needs also to Provides a well-written, reasonably clear and complete description of the topic This article doesnt meet this criteria and I suggest that it be re-assessed. Gnangarra 09:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. It's been fixed. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 00:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

no encyclopedia

no encyclopedia

I think these writings under the entry of "comfort women" are filled with wrong information, most of which is borrowed from Japanese documents and scholars. This reflects the unfair distribution of the historical exploration of the "Japanese Military Sexual Slaves." This page needs to be edited by the very treatment of historical truth. Numbers count, but there are many numbers that are wrong. The majority of the "Japanese Military Sexual Slaves" were Koreans. Please refer to the following websites, www.twotigers.org and www.comfort-women.org.

What's more, the first sentence of the section of "Responsibility" "Japan regards all World War II compensation claims to be settled" is problematic. Even though the Japanese government "regards" this issue to be settled, the "victims" have never been free from the pain and suffering from the Japanese military sexual slavery. There is a compelling need to get the official apology and reparation from the japanese government.

Think about the Holocaust. Germany admits their crime, even though the cruel memory does not fade away. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.205.145.10 (talk • contribs) .

That may be, but this is wikipedia. Go edit it yourself if you see something wrong and add ext links. Good luck. -ScotchMB 15:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Uhm, the page is protected. No-one's adding anything. -- Dandelions (NLI)

History's written by the powerful who care. Opinions aside, I feel this article is very apologist of the terrible Japanese practice and needs serious attention from people representing other viewpoints. Indeed, this has been protected for a while, it seems. It is hardly a Wikipedia article, let alone one of encyclopedia standards, if it cannot be editted.

--King 01:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

External links

I have found an interesting article : The "Comfort Women" SystemKim976 13:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Needs real document

About the documents found by Yoshimi Yoshiaki, the document actually reads "Some agents claim themselves as Japanese military and try to recruite women. That should be stoped. Any agents who try to kidnap women will be in jail." So the Japanese military at the time actually was trying to stop forced porostitution. It does not indicate "the military was directly involved." That gives wrong impression to readers. By the way I have a picture of original documents. Besides the "agents" was not Japanese.

The truth

<a href="http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html">Report No. 49: Japanese POW Interrogation on Prostitution.</a> "This report is based on the information obtained from the interrogation of twenty Korean "comfort girls" and two Japanese civilians captured around the tenth of August, 1944 in the mopping up operations after the fall of Myitkyin a in Burma."

The above is one of fact.

Do you read Japanese characters?

　These are advertisings on the Korean newspapers("Everyday hot news" and "Daily Seoul").

These said

On the right

"Wanted! Comfort women!"

Age: 18-30 17-23

Payment: 300YEN/month( You can draw wages in advance up to 3000Yen.)

On the left "Official paper of Governor of Korea"

"Wanted. Military Comfort women"

At those time, average monthly salary　of Korean women's was about only 10-20Yen.

Please image $ 20,000 monthly salary for very young ladies.......

How do you think about these advertisings.

The advertisings refers to an unfortunate history, and I think there may be some victims and willing sex worker.

--Lulusuke 11:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that military bank note is worth nothing in a devastated wartime economy in which everything is rationed by military totalitarian governemt.

Japanese yen and Japanese military yen are totally different.

Imperial Japanese government circulated vast amount of Japanese military yen which is worth nothing inside Japan proper to extort labors and services for free in occupied areas. When Japanese army confisticated goods or services in occupied area, they just handed out military yen note which was worth toilet paper.220.76.64.71 13:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The followings are from an article about Japanese military yen in Wikipedia.

"Since the military yen was not backed by gold, and did not have a specific place of issuance, the military yen could not be exchanged for Japanese yen. Forcing local populations to use the military yen officially was one of the ways the Japanese government could dominate the local economies. ... On 6 September 1945, the Japanese Ministry of Finance announced that all military yen became void. Overnight the military yen literally became useless pieces of paper."220.76.64.71 14:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Comfort women/Archive 1

日本軍用手票 (in Chinese) (in Japanese)
Unit
Symbol	¥‎
Denominations
Subunit
100	sen
Banknotes	1 sen, 5 sen, 50 sen, ¥1, ¥5, ¥10, ¥100
Coins	none
Demographics
User(s)	Areas occupied by Japan during World War II
Issuance
Central bank	Ministry of War of Japan

The Japanese government forcibly made Hong Kong residents trade in their Hong Kong Dollars, gold, foreign currencies and various other stocks and shares certificates for Japanese currency and vouchers used by the Japanese army (hereafter referred to as Military Yen) as the only legal curency in Hong Kong. People who were found to be using Hong Kong Dollars or other foreign currencies were severely punished by the Japanese Army some were even executed.[[18]]

The Japanese army evacuated from Hong Kong in the autumn of 1945 and the Military Yen became worthless paper overnight. Many residents were bankrupted and some became beggars while others starved to death. The legacy left many families destroyed, resulting in widows and orphans relying on community assistance to the present day.

During the Hong Kong occupation the Japanese government transported the forcibly exchanged Hong Kong Dollars to Macau to buy material, gold, foreign currencies, precious metals, and other coins to ship back to Japan to develop Japanese country.

Hong Kong residents have petitioned the Japanese government for decades for compensation, seeking to exchange the Military Yen for Hong Kong Dollars. The Japanese government however used the San Francisco Peace Treaty as a way to shrug off all their responsibilities.[[19]Enola Gay in Hiroshima 08:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

• You are misunderstanding about Japanese military yen. They had availableness and had purchase before 1945.9. And they were able to convert to "Japanese Yen", before the 1945.9, although many problems were there in this issue after Japnese defeat in the war. It was a material of the same nature as Allied Military Currency which U.S. issued in World War II. Tropicaljet 08:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Value of certain currency depends on the credibility of the issuing entity. I don't think that Japanese Army had the same level of credibility of Allied forces. Would you exchange your US dollar with North Korean curreny according to official exchange rate set by North Korean government? They had availableness and had purchase. And they were able to convert to "US dollar". If you do, you become a beggar128.134.207.82 08:27, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• You are misunderstandeing what I said. I said only that it was a material of the same nature as Allied Military Currency which U.S. issued in World War II, not that it had same value. The Japanese military yen could be exchanged to Japanese yen, that,s all. Tropicaljet 08:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Japanese yen was in short supply in occupied area. It is similar to this kind of ad "I'll sell my Ipod for 10 cents, but currently out of stock"

• Of cause, Japanese yen was in short supply in occupied area, so they issued Japanese military yen in the area. Complexion of the war was unpredictable, so Japanese Army issued it in a flexible and impromptu manner. It was same to Allied Military Currency which U.S. issued in World War II. Tropicaljet 09:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• As I said there was huge difference between Japanese Imperial Army's credibility and US Army's credibility. Do you think that North Korean government and US government have the same credibility? Check Moodys, there are huge differences among dirfferent countries
• According to basic economics 101, when Japanese yen was in short supply, the value should go up. when there were abundant supply of Japanese military yen, devaluation ensued.128.134.207.82 10:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes,there were a lot of ads like that. And much of the media was Japanese controlled, not to say some Coreans didn't profit. If the alternative was starvation/hunger anyone would answer that ad, the term "willing" is used loosely in many instances throughout history. Not every person who answered to these articles could have been compensated. There was(and still is) a culturally sexist attitude in Asia towards women and it wouldn't be hard to imagine some Japanese soldier refusing to pay money to a very young girl for her "services". I know it comes down to proving with evidence but human nature is predictable.Cindydaperky 20:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

You said "it wouldn't be hard to imagine...". I am not interested in your imagination. Give me an evidence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.140.223.32 (talk) 12:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

Legality

Prostitution was certainly legal, cf. Prostitution in Japan. "Bonded labour" is a harder one -- how do you define the term? Jpatokal 07:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality Tag

Is this article's neutrality still disputed? I read it for a first time today and it seems neutral to me. Makes me question whether this tag was placed due to neutrality disputes, or because somebody denies that this ever happen... which, I think can be said pretty clearly, it did. We should consider removing the tag, if a consensus can be achieved that this article has been brought up to par. —Lantoka ^{( talk | contrib)} 23:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems mostly neutral; there's a lot of sarcasm here and there, though, sneers about the sincerity of the Japanese, mostly. Also, the statistics should be sourced right off, with footnote-targets. The Koreans and Chinese want to make their victimization seem worse, the Japanese want to make it seem better, and it's important to know whose stats are being quoted, so one can immediately judge the accuracy (as in, "Hmm, it's a Korean scholar, he's probably taking the highest numbers he can find" or "This number's from a Japanese magazine, they're probably using the most favorable of all the stats out there").

Also, some finessing should be done. A lot of the article makes it seem that all of the Comfort Women were kidnapped, or that all of this was done officially. In real life, nothing's ever that simple. There was probably a mix of kidnapping, dupes, and willing participants. There was probably a mix of government-sponsored kidnappings (etc); illegal action taken by criminals that was ignored by the officials, either because of its perceived military benefits or because of graft; and out-and-out illegal activity that commanders tried to stop. After all, you're talking about a huge army on a huge region over almost twenty years. Oskar Schindler and Dr. Mengele were both in the same army, weren't they?71.223.50.45 10:26, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the neutrality is an issue as many of the sources are Japanese and more than others. Japan, Corea, and China especially are distrustful of one another when it comes to their shared histories. There is a long history of cover-ups, false accusations and false claims. For Coreans, they have been "pushed around" a lot. And even today Corea is struggling with the Goguryeo dispute with China and the +30,000 historical artifacts stolen or sold from Corea to various places, mostly Japan. A significant part of the Corean culture has been or is being corrupted.

The Japanese sources shouldn't be dismissed but the bias should be noted, Japan and China both have very strong nationalistic attitudes as well. Of course, there is a large amount of nationalism in Corea and that does get in the way of the facts as well. But even those Coreans who aren't overly nationalistic are suspicious about Japan and China's intentions and agendas whether they seem good or bad.

I don't think any of us should expect to know everything that happened to the comfort women. The South Corean government is reluctant to do anything which serves as a huge advantage for Japan's ability to evade this issue. I definitely agree that nothing is ever simple.Cindydaperky 20:38, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Redirect from "Comfort Station"

Comfort station redirects to here comfort women. I read the old article and see the connection between comfort women and what I would precieve as a comfort station (western perspective) more like a rest area. (IMO) The phrase is used on the page Tourist trap on several others as place to "go" that is not in the woods with other aminitess . I am thinking of building the page Comfort station in that meaning with a disambig link here. Thoughts? Jeepday 15:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Any references to "Comfort station" being something more like a rest area? I've never heard it used like that but if it's a common usage of the term it might work better as a disambig than a redirect. IMFromKathlene 20:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Example of usage - Halfway down, on their Indian gardens claim, the Camerons set up a ramshackle place called a “hotel,” which had the only drinkable water available. They even charged for the “comfort stations” along the way. What a deal, and it was all theirs!

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/albright2/pdf/ch20.pdf From Horace M. Albright and Marian Albright Schenck: “Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years, Page 265, University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8061-3155-1

As used in the reference for the article Tourist trap Jeepday 03:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Want to make it a disambig page? I'm not totally sure what to put in the little descriptions for the different pages. IMFromKathlene 18:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

If you disambiguated it, what would you name the two division? Comfort station (rest) & Comfort station (sex)? Jeepday 23:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation of Comfort station completed. Jeepday 14:10, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The place where the comfort woman exists was "Iansho" in Japanese, and the literal translation is "Comfort place". The signboard there was "Special comfort place" . In Japanese, "comfort station" in the meaning of public lavatory is Sagesshou to the woman who makes love to anybody. Victim's supporter made the word known for the campaign in the sphere in English or it was sometimes used in the place where no Japanese prostitute discriminating, and they are can be imagined. --Elementy 20:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Which references were actually used in the article?

I'm not sure that the sources listed in the References were actually used used in the article. Where, for instance, was Keller's work of fiction used as a source for the article? If the sources weren't actually used in the article, they should be moved to the External Links section. Patiwat 06:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Removal of uncited material

As unpalatable as some of the truth of this topic are, as Wikipedians we have a responsibility to easily verifed sources of reliable information.

WP:CITE and other Wiki policy such as WP:VERIFY state that every contributor has responsibility to provide citations and remove unreferenced material.

To quote WP:VERIFY, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed.".

To quote founder Jimmy Wales, "Jimmy Wales has said of this: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced".

I note that an unverified tag has been placed on this article since December, can we please now cooperate to provide relaible sources for this contentious topic? 125.203.207.252 03:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for detailed references and statistics

I have to agree to the comment from Patiwat above. There seems to be a very slack use of sources in general on this topic.

• Can anyone help me by providing a detailed breakdown of a number of statistics used in the article?

The 200,000 figures seems to have entered the popular imagination to be repeated ad nauseum as "fact". What ever the truth of it is, it is clearly being used as for propagandistic purposes where there does not seem to have been presented an inadequate breakdown, e.g.

• number of Japanese prostitutes already working in Korea
• number of Korean and other nation's prostitutes already working in Korea
• number of Korean agents/pimps
• the relative proportions of different nationalities
• the relative proportions of those used for sexual purposes and those used for general purposes such as menial servants, cooks, nurses
• the relative proportions of those with previous experience as prostitutes
• the relative proportions of those voluntarily involved or sold into prostitution either by themselves or by their families
• the relative proportions of those engaged through local/Korean agents and those taken involuntarily
• timeframe and extent over which the alleged practises developed

I appreciate that this is a sensitive issue, both on the Wikipedia and in the international community as a whole, that invoked a number of political issues but it is not being made any better by unwarranted or exaggerated claims being made. In the last case, I am challenging the given perception that Korean was a innocent, blissful place for all women out of which all of a sudden evil Japanese extracted 200,000 women in 1939 and raped them daily for 6 years until 1945.

There exist sound estimates of the extent of Korean prostitution during the Korean War of 1950 onwards, and today, with figures given being in excess of 1,000,000 Korean women (src; Katharine H. S. Moon, Columbia University Press). Today that figure is said to be over 1.2 million with over 300,000 establishments existing related to the provision prostitution [20].

• Given that we are talking about a period separated by only 5 years, either the figures for the time during the Japanese occupation and WWII seem quite modest or there must have been a significantly higher number of voluntary prostitutes also working at that time.

• How did the two groups co-exist?

I hope that we can skip the politics that seem rife in Japanese-Korean relations and cooperate in the first place to provide the best sources of objective statistics

125.203.207.252 05:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

CNN not reliable source

As per title, CNN is a tertiary source - at best - with its own politics and therefore not reliable source, see; WP:VERIFY. Given quotation were pretty much pure shock propaganda.

I have put to you a series of question for adequate documentation. If you want to be taken seriously, let us give them some thought and come up with some references.

Otherwise, this is just POV to the point of racism. I am sorry but you have to face it, 125.204.39.85 05:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

actually for a historical controversy, there are way too many newspaper and media references, and extremely few actual direct references to historical research. especially the first paragraph.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Bababoef (talk • contribs) 13:20, March 26, 2007

Computational method of 200,000 women

How was the number of 200,000 women counted ?　
どのような計算によって従軍慰安婦の数が20万人になったのか数えたのか教えてください。
Japanese army had 700,000 soldiers in WWⅡ. (170,000 soldiers remained in Manturia.)
当時、中国に展開していた日本軍（関東軍）は70万人でした。(17万人は満州に残っていました)
Two soldiers and one comfort woman. This is a militarily impossible combination.
兵士2人に慰安婦１名。こんな行軍は常識的にありえません。
Please count based on the source that can be trusted.
信頼できる情報源からの引用を行ってください。--ShinjukuXYZ 11:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

---

The number does not mean "AT THE SAME TIME" It actually means "IN TOTAL"

Also the women are not only from Korea, China, and Japan - the women from South East Asia like the Philippines are also drafted.--Chiyah 20:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

---

As Chiyah says, the number is total. According to the World War II casualties entry, "Casualties by Country" section lists 2,000,000 dead military personnel from Japan. By this number alone the ratio goes down to 1:10. Count the soldiers who survived the war and the figure should go down further.Empraptor 21:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

In a word, are you insisting that the comfort woman was offered to all Japanese armies? In the defeat of Japan, it is a big cause that the replenishment line was cut. If the comfort woman was offered instead of food, the reason why the Japanese treated her as food can be understood. --ShinjukuXYZ 20:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

What select portion of the army had exclusive access to comfort women? I don't know and you didn't bother to give any information along this line. Maybe you could shed a light in that area. I was throwing numbers to put things into perspective. 200,000 comfort women for 700,000 soldiers does sound ridiculous, but that's because the comparison is flawed. It sounds less absurd if you consider the total number of soldiers who died in WWII (let alone those died before WWII and those who survived their service). I suppose you could calculate the total man-days served by soldiers and do the same with comfort women and compare those if you wanted to be accurate. But I have no clue how to go about it. The point is that comparing the total number of comfort women to the size of the Japanese army at one point in time gives us no useful information. -- Empraptor 23:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Statements cited to CNN and Boston Globe are not "dubious" unless contradicted by more authoritative sources. And "authoritative sources" mean independent, reputable publications, not Japanese right-wing think tanks and bloggers that keep echoing each other with the same BS "talking points." I have deleted uncited rambling commentary and added citation requests as appropriate. Do not revert without citing better sources. Herrich 21:50, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

A lot of South Koreans were doing prostitution to a Japanese army according to the report of the United States of America government in 1944. [21] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ShinjukuXYZ (talk • contribs) 07:27, 4 March 2007 (UTC).

Thanks for that link. While it's just field observation, it proves that these girls were recruited fraudulently by the Japanese military:

"The nature of this "service" was not specified but it was assumed to be work connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally making the soldiers happy. The inducement used by these agents was plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representations many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen.".melonbarmonster 19:48, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

One remark insertion, if analyzing it relies on only "Independent and reputable publications", and both are not compared, it is dangerous. The entire information might be near the left if it thinks Mr. Hata to be a right wing only because of the rumor by specific people. Elementy 19:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

We must admit that the "estimated" number of comfort women has a very wide range and that who estimated is quite unknown. As we look at the footnote 5 and 6 of current version;

• CNN: "A majority of the 200,000 women whom historians estimate were forced to provide sex for Japan's former Imperial Army were from the Korean Peninsula, which was then a Japanese colony." without further citation as to who the historians are. Dated March 29, 2001.
• Boston Globe: "The US Congress was on the verge of approving a first-of-its-kind resolution urging Japan to formally acknowledge its responsibility for the enslavement of more than 200,000 Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, and other women and girls in the 1930s and '40s to provide sex for imperial Japanese soldiers." without further citation as to who estimated. Dated October 15, 2006.
• BBC: "An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 women across Asia, predominantly Korean and Chinese, are believed to have been forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese military brothels." without further citation as to who estimated or who believe. Dated December 8, 2000.
• Mainichi: "Historians say thousands of women -- as many as 200,000 by some accounts -- mostly from Korea, China and Japan worked in the Japanese military brothels" without further citation as to who the historians are. Dated March 6, 2007
• UC Press: "A majority of the 80,000 to 200,000 comfort women were from Korea, though others were recruited or kidnapped from China, the Philippines, Burma, and Indonesia." without further citation. Originally published in the January 1997 issue of Endeavors Magazine.
• A Public Betrayed: "It is estimated that 80,000 to perhaps 200,000 girls and young women became enslaved as "comfort women" forced to provide sex to the Japanese military during the Second World War." without further citation as to who estimated. Published in August 2004.
• JPRI: "Estimates of the number of comfort women range between 50,000 and 200,000." without further citation as to who estimated. Dated may 2001. JPRI is a US based non-profit organization founded in 1994 by Chalmers Johnson and Steven C.

The only estimate based on facts is one appears in footnote 7, in which Prof. Yoshimi estimates 2000 centers times 100=200,000. Is this good enough? I do not think so.61.24.66.192 17:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

PM's recent statement

It seems that some of the subtlety in language may have been missed when translating the PM's statement from Japanese to English, from what I read from some blogs. Apparently, what he said was that he acknowledged that the women may have been coerced by circumstance, but he denied that the Japanese government or military had any role in direct coercion. The statement he made about the comfort women should be clarified and dismabiguated better, by someone knowledgable in the language. I don't know if it's a major difference in translation, but I'm noting it here in case.--Yuje 23:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah you can get that from the reported translation too. I don't see much difference. But if you have link that clearly illustrates this I'd love to check it out.melonbarmonster 17:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

How about this Daily Yomiuri's editorial?http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/editorial/20070307TDY04005.htm PM Abe said "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion in the narrower sense.". AP Press omitted "in the narrower sense". Nabetsuneonline 14:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Abe's strategy is called "One stone, two birds" He denies Yohei Kono's 1993 apology inside Japan, but succeeds Yohei Kono's 1993 apology outside Japan.

Many Japanese Historians claim that Comfort Women were common prostitutes

Tropicaljet, 61.116.114.225, Odst, Nightshadow28 have made unexplained edits claiming 200,000 were recruited as prostitutes. Reference given, http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html clearly states comfort women were fraudulently recruited through 'false representations'. This document verifies that the Japanese military fraudulently recruited innocent girls into forced prostitution. Here's recent Japantimes article on a soldier who confirmed sex slavery. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070304a1.html melonbarmonster 03:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I saw Jan Ruff-O'Herne, author of Fifty Years of Silence (1997), interviewed on TV yesterday and she said, "how can they deny what 200,000 women say?" But the Japanese nationalists (and I don't mean patriots) will still try. And try to smear the comfort women as prostitutes and anyone else who disagrees with them as propagating North Koreans propaganda.

Japanese PM's denial upsets 'comfort woman'

By Todd Cardy

March 05, 2007 03:53pm

Article from: AAP

[...]

Jan Ruff O'Herne, 84, said she was one of the thousands of women interned in brothels as prostitutes, now known as "comfort women", for Japanese soldiers during the war.

The Adelaide woman testified last month at a US House of Representatives hearing in Washington that she had been raped "day and night" for three months by soldiers when she was just 19.

[...]

Ms O'Herne accused the Japanese Government of failing to take responsibility for their crimes.

She said the Japanese did not want to pay compensation to victims and rewrite history.

[...]

Ms O'Herne, a Netherlands-born Australian, said she was 19 when she was seized from a prisoner of war camp in Indonesia and forced into a brothel to become a prostitute.

She said many high ranking Japanese military officers had admitted to her that they had used the military brothels during the war.

[...]

Ms O'Herne said she had forgiven but would never forget the atrocities committed against her.

[...]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21327548-2,00.html

Grant | Talk 07:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that great article but can you delete the text of the article and just leave a summary instead with the link? Better yet, add it to the article with citations. melonbarmonster 07:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

User:220.97.89.172 made unexplained edits again. I reverted the edit since we have two citations that support the existence of sexual slavery and women were not common prostitutes. Please contribute to this TALK PAGE to resolve differences instead of making unexplained edits contrary to available citations.melonbarmonster 07:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

O'Herne's case is no evidence of Army's coercion. It was only a sexual abuse by soldiers who broke the Army's rule. The Army shut down the sites when O'Herne's father complained. Dutch court decided that it was not an organized crime by the Army. Ikedanobuo 13:04, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Confort women were prostitutes in war time. It was a historical fact. See fig.1 in the article.

YOU CAN'T READ THESE SENTECES?? ( and re the "This document verifies that the Japanese military fraudulently recruited innocent girls into forced prostitution" above )

I read the sentences and they are important ones, since they represent documentary evidence made at the time.

The nature of this "service" was not specified *but it was assumed to be* work connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally making the soldiers happy. The inducement used by these agents was plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of *these false representations* many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewarded with an advance of a few hundred yen. [my emphasis]

It is not clear to me that "these false represenations" refer to.

1. "plenty of money" (often turned out to be false since the bills in which the "girls" were payed became worthless)
2. "opportunity to pay off family debts" (true in so far as the "girls" got an advance, false for the same reason as above when the girls hoped to take earnings home at the end of the war.
3. "the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore." Again turned out to be false.

However, the document does not seem to be saying that there was "representation" to the effect that the jobs were anything other than what they were, only that "it (the service) was assumed to be" other than it in fact was. But the lack of represenation, or representing the job in a way that was likely to have been misunderstood, is being refered to as false? --Timtak 04:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Fig.1. Recruitment advertising for Comfort women in newspapers in Korea. (Right: Keijō nippō, July 26, 1944) "Comfort Women Wanted, Urgent!" Age: 17-30. Place of Employment: entertainment for non-frontline unit [obscured]. Monthly Salary: More than 300 yen. (You can receive an advance on salary up to 3000 yen.) From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., ...[obscured]. [Contact at] [Address(unreadable)] Imai [Employment] Registry Tropicaljet 09:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Please try not to violate WK:CIV with sarcastic comments in caps.

These women were recruited fraudulently, kidnapped and raped. Referenced are discussed above which you are not addressing. The correct term for these women is "comfort women", hence the title of this article. To describe them as "prostitutes" is inflammatory and historically inaccurate. You need to address the references provided if you want your views taken seriously instead of reverting people's edits without discussion.melonbarmonster 19:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Fig.1.'s original address is here[22].This homepage is made by Korean government. I think they can't read it. I don't make assertion that no recruiting frauduletly, kidnapped and raped, but make assertion that almost everybody in Korea and Japan in 1940's knew that "comfort women" is prostitute. And so there were many prostitutes who had gotten the job with knowing that "comfort women" is prostitute as a matter of course.Tropicaljet 23:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

So some women we recruited and went voluntarily. That does not obscure the fact that many were forced. To say that they were all prostitutes for monetary gain, and on a voluntary basis, is inflammatory and nothing more than extreme nationalist propaganda. Grant | Talk 04:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

In our time we know there are many prostitutes which are exploited by prostitution agents. But we usually call all of them prostitutes. In those days in Korea and Japan, the people called them "comfort women" as a euphemism of prostitute. That's all. Tropicaljet 05:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

In the English language, if not in other languages, the term "prostitute" is regarded as factually incorrect and highly offensive to people who were forced/deceived into becoming sex slaves. Grant | Talk 06:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I respect your sense of ethics. But there are some countries which have legalized　prostitution like Netherlands and Australia. England don't prohibit Independent Escort and prohibit systematized prostitution. Japan prohibited prostitution in 1956. And Korea prohibited prostitution in 2004.Tropicaljet 07:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem is not the legality or otherwise of prostitution; the problem is that in modern English, it is no longer acceptable to refer to women as "prostitutes" when they are forced to take part. In modern usage, a prostitute or sex worker is someone who has chosen to do that work, for their own financial gain. Coercion means that they have been raped and/or subjected to sexual slavery, not that they are "prostitutes" Grant | Talk 10:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I know what you mean, so the woman who have been raped and/or subjected will be called sexual slavery. But what do you call them who borrowed in advance and engaged in work ? We know many women in those days were in that situation. I think what we call them is a difficut problem. Perhaps you don't know but in those days especially Tohoku district of Japan and Korea were very poor, so many women borrowed in advance and engaged in work for their family. Perhaps some times those were contrary to their will, because the parental authority was very strong to do that in those days. Anyway I think that the situation of those women must be objectively confirmed as far as possible and Japanese government's responsibility must be done the same. And I must say that those two problems are two different ones. Tropicaljet 11:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Please provide references that show what women voluntarily became prostitutes and we will discuss them. According to ALL the references we have above women were kidnapped, raped, or fraudulently recruited. Women were recruited with advances without being told they were going to be hired as prostitutes.

In any case what you're talking about doesn't affect the correct term for these women. "Comfort women" was and is a Japanese term for official military brothels. Whether you argue that some of them weren't forced doesn't change this fact. Thank you for not reverting and discussing here, I hope others will follow your lead.melonbarmonster 15:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

"Comfort women" wasn't and isn't a Japanese term for official military brothels. But "Comfort women" was and is a Japanese term for military brothels in the private sector. They were not emploied by army. But "Comfort women" and their agent made commercials with soldiers. Of course under military administration Army provide many advantage like medical treatments and improved transportation facilities for them. And sometimes army's high command made acknowledgment to Korea and Japan that they should take care prostitution agent not to break a law like kidnapping. Those records remain in existence. But many of them in Japanese. In those days those were commercial acts. Notorious Yoshida evidences which first made out that Army kidnapped women are denied by 許栄善 a korean newspaper writer in Cheju(済州島) and 金奉玉 researcher of local history,(「慰安婦の戦場の性」Hata Kunihiko(秦郁彦)　新潮選書　1999/6　323頁 ). And so there are no evidence that Army kidnapped and this is common belief in academy after contentions. And I think that probably it is true that Army didn't kidnapped esp in Korea. Because sometimes a prostitut's gainings rose more than full general Tojo Hideki(東条英機）'s annual earnings for high risk high return market function (these had records), so prostituts and their agent were strongly invited. And if the army and govenment kidnapped in Korea, many of Korean officers and soldiers in Army would revolt or refuse orders, it would made army dissolution or defeated. I think Japanse people and govenment were wanted for efforts of explain those controversy and credences. I will do what I can do. Tropicaljet 19:37, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue with you about claims that have no bearing on edits being discussed. Try to stick to the topic. "Comfort women" is the right term to refer to these women and we should stick to that convention. Thanks. melonbarmonster 22:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Fig.1.'s original address is here[23].This homepage is made by Korean government. It was written that Fig.1. Recruitment advertising for Comfort women in newspapers in Korea.(Right: Keijō nippō, July 26, 1944) "Comfort Women Wanted, Urgent!" Age: 17-30. Place of Employment: entertainment for non-frontline unit [obscured]. Monthly Salary: More than 300 yen. (You can receive an advance on salary up to 3000 yen.) From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., ...[obscured]. [Contact at] [Address(unreadable)] Imai [Employment] Registry. Monthly Salary up to 3000 yen was about 5 times more than full general salary (6600yen by year). It is too huge to take the words easy, but reading in USA report[24], it would not be so exaggeration. In this report an average month a girl would gross about fifteen hundred yen.

And Confort woman was written in novel "春婦伝"(Syunpu den"　in 1940's, this novel was filmized two times, "暁の脱走" (1950)(Escape At Dawn )co-written by 黒澤明 (Akira Kurosawa) and directed by 谷口千吉(Senkichi Taniguchi)　and "春婦伝(1965)(Story of a Prostitute)" by 鈴木清順(Suzuki Seijun), however in first film the "Confort woman" was rewrite to be a singer.

So in those days in Japan and Korea they usually knew that the "Confort women" were prostitutes.Tropicaljet

The distinct proof of "Confort wommen"'s high wage is here in USA document[25]. In this report an average month a girl would gross about fifteen hundred yen. This is more than double wages of full general Tojo Hideki(東条英機）'s(6600yen by year). The American Army in those days was beyond Japanese imagination about luxury. From their sight "Confrot women"'s wage would be low. But that's the case.Tropicaljet 05:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Instead of reffering to movies made in the fifties like the ridiculous "Story of a prostitute" and arguing about dubious word interpretation, you should be careful to not vandalize verbal proof such as the testimony of Yasuji Kaneko from the washingtonpost. I notice his citation disapeared. Is it because somedody do not like what he said? --Flying tiger 16:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason which I reffered the movies is that in 1940 in Japan and Korea, people usually knew that "confort women" were prostituts. That's all. I know 金子安次(Yasuji Kaneko) the member of Chugoku kikokusya renrakukai (ja:中国帰還者連絡会). But I have no way of telling about him. In the meantime I suspended to estimate his testimony. By the way why you can make a critical attack on someones's conduct with doing same conducts that erased citations. I can't understand your morals. Tropicaljet 17:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Please review WIKI policy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox

Your trying to make points that have nothing to do with pertinent edits being discussed.melonbarmonster 18:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. But please make more clear which point you are indicating if you want to bear a part.Tropicaljet 18:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Yasuji Kaneko's Testimony apparently contradicts the report by the UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION, which says "The girls were allowed the prerogative of refusing a customer. This was often done if the person were too drunk.". http://www.exordio.com/1939-1945/codex/Documentos/report-49-USA-orig.html . Thus, his testimony just suggests his personal brutality and does not reflects the truth of the comfort women system. I think it is not appropriate to cite his testimony on our article. (Nabetsuneonline 18:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC))

You just make a personnal interpretation of a testimonial proof. You were not there, neither I. This report does not pretend to cover all the cases. Kaneko talks about rape of comfort women during his campaigns in China. I think that is inapropriate to make personal point of view in this article. --Flying tiger 19:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't sweat it. That's the same document that proves that Japanese military lied in to recruit comfort women. Whichever girl was interviewed may have had the right to refuse a customer but that is an overwhelming minority.melonbarmonster 21:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Ikuhiko Hata, Tsutomu Nishioka, and other majority of historians in Japan agree that there was no Ianfu that was kidnapped by the Army. Yoshimi insisted that there was, but he admitted reluctantly that there was no evidence to support his claim. The Ianfu were state-regulated prostitutes that were common in many countries. For example, the U.S. Army employed thousands of "comfort girls" in the Korean War.[26] If you blame Ianfu as sex slaves, why don't you blame the U.S. Army? Ikedanobuo 12:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Japanese Revisionist Edits

These edits and reversions are becoming a nuisance. Tropicaljet you've continued to make edits and reverts without explaining yourself. You need to limit your contributions to this talk page to explain your edits rather than using it as a soapbox in violation of WP:NOT#SOAP.

Please propose serious edits here and gain consensus before reverting or editing. Thank you.melonbarmonster 20:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No personal attacks

This Revisionist word is obviously personal attack word. melonbarmonster is a personal attacker. Please keep the rules.Wikipedia:No personal attacks. I think you are Korean. And now it is important for your country and east asian future to know the truth. And the truth can't be found without many facts. Please don't eliminate citations to be selfish without any representations. Thanks. Tropicaljet 20:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

You're ranting and raving that Comfort Women were common prostitutes, they were paid well, etc.. Those views are known as Japanese revisionism around the world. That's a fact.

You'd do better to quit reversions and explain your edits and seek consensus instead of using the talk page to violate WP:NOT#SOAP. You still haven't explained your edits.melonbarmonster 06:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Unexplained Edits continued

I've been trying get involved parties to at least explain their edits to no avail. I'll list the edits that are problematic here.

1. "The majority of the women were recruited by force or deception, and became sex slaves. " This line is being deleted over and over again. Citation backs up the statement. Regardless of personal opinions on the matter, the facts referenced is clear. Competing citations are welcome for discussion.

2. "However, Seiji Yoshida's evidence, which first made out that the Army kidnapped women, is denied by 許栄善, a Korean newspaper writer and 金奉玉, a researcher of Korean local history in Jeju Island (済州島). Then it was reported that Seiji Yoshida came round that he made fabricated history in 1996.. After argumentations historians accept that no such orchestrated action was undertaken by the Japanese military. This section is being added without explanation. Details and explanation of this theory that Yoshida made up his previous claims need to be given. Furthermore, citation from Daily Yomiuri(last footnote) in no way states that "no orchestrated action was undertaken by the Japanese military." This is poorly written and a coherent explanation and a reasonable proposal is needed before proper integration into the article.

3. Abe's quote was changed from "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion" to "The fact is, there is no evidence to prove that such orchestrated action was undertaken by the Japanese military." The original quote is referenced and unless competing references are provided for discussion, personal translations are not proper.Melonbarmonster 01:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

1. Please explain where ""The majority of the women were recruited by force or deception" was told in your citations.

"A majority of the 200,000 women whom historians estimate were forced to provide sex for Japan's former Imperial Army were from the Korean Peninsula, which was then a Japanese colony." "Historians believe at least 200,000 young women were forced to serve in the Japanese army's brothels during World War II." from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6411471.stm. Please let us know if you have any references that state otherwise.

2. Daily Yomiuri's statement made an assertion of these argumentations and YOMIURI is largest paper in Japan. So it is fully worth to cite.

Except the article that you cited doesn't state Japanese military wasn't "orchestrating", et.. If you provide a clear quote, I'd be happy to look at it.

3. This translation was deleted the context. Abe stated that no orchestrated action was undertaken by the Japanese military. This is same to the conclusion of history Society.

Like it or not, that's the way it was translated in the references. I didn't provide my own translations and neither can you. NYT and Washington Post are the sources. Again, if you provide citations from History Society, we can look at it.

4. Why do you delete Japanese women in first paragraph so many times? They were majority of "confort women" in cited all studies below. Tropicaljet 02:34, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

BC, the most references even in that first paragraph state that most were from Korea and China. Only Hata's estimates Japanese comfort women at 40% whereas all other citations state otherwise. Even Hata's estimates show that most comfort women were not Japanese in any case.melonbarmonster 02:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your quotes and explains of 1-3. I will search adequate citations. But deleting YOMIURI article is a vandalsm. It's equally worth to NYT and Washington Post about this problem. For other people never delete again. And amoung the studies of "comfort women", the only one which stated the ratio of ethnic is written that Japanese were most, so Japanese must be stated in the first paragraph. Thanks.Tropicaljet 03:47, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with Yomiuri. But the article doesn't support the portion of the article. That's why it wasn't belong there. You need to cite it correctly. As for including "Japanese" I'll concede if you really want it there. There were certainly Japanese women who were victimized although I still think the citations support majority being non-Japanese.

There are quite inflammatory edits being made without edit explanation and discussion in spite of my numerous requests. I'm going to request a page protection if this persists. Any and all comments are welcome.melonbarmonster 20:59, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't come into line with your disagreeing with quoting Japanese women in first paragraph. They were most of them. It's a machination of disguising the fact. If you want delete it, first of all, you must testify to that Japannese women were not most of them. If you can't do it, you mustn't delete Japanese women from your standards. You will be mere a Vandal.Tropicaljet 04:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I've got a collection of a few more reference links which support the theory that the majority of comfort women were non-Japanese.

• BBC article "An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 women across Asia, predominantly Korean and Chinese, are believed to have been forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese military brothels"
• Mainichi Daily News article "Historians say thousands of women -- as many as 200,000 by some accounts -- mostly from Korea, China and Japan worked in the Japanese military brothels"
• University of Carolina publication:"A majority of the 80,000 to 200,000 comfort women were from Korea, though others were recruited or kidnapped from China, the Phillipines, Burma, and Indonesia. Some Japanese women who worked as prostitutes before the war also became comfort women."
• A Public Betrayed"Approximately 80 percent of the sex slaves were Korean;"
• Japan Policy Research Institute publication "Estimates of the number of comfort women range between 50,000 and 200,000. It is believed that most were Korean." Phonemonkey 13:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your efforts. But these are secondary samples. The resarches cited in the artice are resuts of their investigations. They are more authoritative than these. I am looking for such papers. Tropicaljet 14:30, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Can we get this page protected, please? The teenagers from Japanese chat sites have no concept of what an encyclopedia is, and their revisionist rants are just embarassing. This has really gone on long enough. OpieNn 15:20, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Most of these "users" are sockpuppets though. See USer:ShinjukuXYZ. Mackan 19:41, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Not confirmed that they are sockpuppets. See Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/ShinjukuXYZ. --Kusunose 15:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

No, (I for one do not think that tropicaljet is a sockpuppet), but it is very likely. See [27]. And don't you find it mysterious that new users/anonymous users pop up like mushrooms wherever ShinjukuXYZ is revert warring? Look at the Joji Obara article you reverted. Also, ShinjukuXYZ user page reads "I am Japanese", while Necmate's reads "Am I Japanese?". I do not understand why you would defend ShinjukuXYZ. Mackan 17:19, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I provided the result of the most recent check user for your information. I'm not defending him/her. --Kusunose 00:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Btw, I retract my previous statement, after looking more carefully into Tropicaljets' edit list, I DEFINATELY think that Tropicaljet is a sockpuppet, or possibly, a member of the same 2channel group as ShinjukuXYZ. Mackan 23:41, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

edits to the first paragraph

I've re-phrased the first paragraph to try to avoid emotive language. I feel the phrase "there is evidence some were highly paid prostitutes", especially at the end of the opening paragraph, implies too strongly (to native english speakers anyway) that the women were somehow in the business voluntarily to enjoy a life of luxury, and is therefore inappropriate. On the other hand I also understand how some people may feel that the term "sex slave" is too simplistic as a generalisation of all comfort women (because some - a minority - were indeed paid prostitutes). The fact that the term "comfort women" refers to all women who worked in pre-1945 Japanese military brothels, whether they were prostitutes or sex slaves, whether they were in it for the money or were abducted at gunpoint, so I think it is best to keep the details out of the opening paragraph so it's not seen to swing either way. Phonemonkey 20:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't like what you did to it (but I'd like to stress that I don't question your motives). I think the usage of the term "sex slave" is entirely in its place. I almost feel that the Japanese revisionists would be happy with the way it reads now. In these times, it's more important than ever not to water down the article because of Japanese revisionist claims. See this for example, a depressing read [28]. Also, why "a minority was highly paid", I mean, even if some were PAID, why stress it, if they were a minority? Does that fact (if it is one) even belong in the first paragraph? And also, why "highly", if anything, say "some were paid". Mackan 21:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, look at this article, which, if it isn't already referred to, definately should be: Japan Times - Soldier confirms wartime sex slavery. Mackan 21:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

If you Google "comfort women", you'll find pretty much all major English news organizations use "sex slavery" "sexual enslavement" or some form.

I think citing to contemporaneous U.S. military reports on interviews with 20 women in one location is improper interpretation of a primary source (WP:A), because we can't draw broad conclusions from such a limited scope document. We should be citing reputable secondary sources.

For a similar reason, I don't see a need to describe in such detail the writings and disputes of specific Japanese writers Hata and Yoshida, since there is pretty much no mention of them in English media reports on comfort women. It's more of a distraction from the actual topic of the article.Etimesoy 22:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that even Abe doesn't deny the comfort women existed or that they were sex slaves, but only that they the Japanese state had any responsibility for what happened. Why give this much ground to extreme revisionists?? Mackan 23:17, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I feel that giving revisionist editors some sort of an opportunity to present their case somewhere within the article would be a better way than protecting the page as a means of ending this depressing edit warring which I've been watching for a few days now. Well perhaps now that Mackan and Etimesoy has put forward a reasoning to their edits it would be nice if any countereditors put forward their arguments here on the talk page instead of merely reversing. I for one support Etimesoy's latest contribution to the opening paragraph apart from the fact that it completely restricts the definition of comfort women to sex slaves from Korea & occupied areas (who were indeed the overwhelming majority and should of course be the focus of this article), and I feel that slight inaccuracies like this give other editors an excuse to revert his/her entire edit. I'm going to make slight changes to the paragraph accordingly. I hope you understand where I'm coming from. Thanks,Phonemonkey 00:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The revisionist claims, and the revisionist debate, must obviously be covered by the article, but in a way that makes it clear that the revisionist debate is something that (naturally) is only occuring in Japan. Critics of the revisionists must also be cited (there are loads of articles and editorials on the subject at The Japan Times Online). And the intro needs to focus on what's important. As the revisionist controversy continues, more and more people will come to Wikipedia for answers. It is extremely important that we give a fair picture of what happened. Mackan 09:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This Report is "No. 49: Japanese POW Interrogation on Prostitution."[[29]] is UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Psychological Warfare Team's Report. And the inflationary profit of prostitute which an average a month a girl would gross about $60000 in present value means there were some kind of commercial acts between agents or prostitutes and soldiers. We must make clear what those were.Tropicaljet 15:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

That report is based on interviews with 20 girls in Burma. As Etimesoy said, you cannot say anything about 200,000 comfort women all over the Japanese empire based on one primary source. And exordio.com, as far as I can tell, is a blog, not a reliable source in itself. "Primary source material that has been published by a reliable source may be used for the purposes of attribution in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it's easy to misuse primary sources." "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible." See WP:A. OpieNn 15:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

In this problem we can use some papers which are written by academic reserchers and archives of US.government. Those are primary sources. And as secondary sources we can use newspapers, but those are in conflict each others. So from every view points of WP:A, we should pay serious attention to primary sources. And you say "200,000 of comfort women", but this number of head-count's is Prof. Hayashi's theory. Prof.Hata says about 20,000. You must say what you know about it. We must say what has substantial reasons. And we must say what we don't know that we don't know.Tropicaljet 16:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I have mistaken in assortment. Academic papers and US.government "report" are belongs to secondary souces from WP:A. So we can use both as authoritative souces. Tropicaljet 19:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

So when you say it is a primary source primary sources are the best, but then you say it's a secondary source, and then all of a sudden secondary sources are the best? To clear things up, "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible". The US report is a primary source, and also an unconfirmed one, the site it is on can not be regarded as a reliable source. Presenting it as a major source is bordering on WP:OR. Our sources should be as up to date as possible. I bet you could find sources from WWII saying there were no gas chambers in the concentration camps, but new sources have become available and new information has been unveiled. There is a consensus that the ianfu were sex slaves, not even a revisionist such as Abe Shinzou denies that. Mackan 23:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry we have mistaken in assortment. Academic papers and US.government "report" are belongs to secondary souces from WP:A. So we can use both as authoritative souces. The US report is not a primary source but a secondary sources. See below what I wrote. Tropicaljet

I agree with your opinion.>Phonemonkey. The inflationary profit of prostitute which an average a month a girl would gross about $60000 in present value would made demiurge to prostitutions and their agents. We had'better avoid giving a straight answer to both views in first paragraph. Tropicaljet 11:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

If Hata and Yoshimi were significant, reputable scholars, their "research" would be taken into account by the professional writers, researchers, fact-checkers, and editors of the NYTimes, Washington Post, BBC, and CNN. So quit your cherry-picking of Japanese revisionist scholars, Ikedanobuo.

Who do you mean by "revisionist scholars"? NYT and BBC aren't scholarly sources. In particular, Onishi of NYT was attacked as ignorant and biased by Japanese professionals. NYT's estimate depends on old and biased sources in English by Yoshimi. But even Yoshimi acknowledges that there was no evidence of abduction by the Army. These issues are extensibly argued in Japan, and there is a consensus among historians that there was no abduction by the Army. The fact is not that Japanese scholars are revisionists but that Western media are illiterate for Japanese. Don't write nonsense if you can't read Japanese sources.Ikedanobuo 09:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true." --ElKevbo 13:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Moving on to improving the article: There probably should be separate sections on the 1992 revelations and 1993 "apology", one on the private women's fund, one on the U.S. congressional bill, and one on Abe's recent comments. Hope other editors can cobble together these sections from the recent press coverage. There is plenty of material from reliable sources, without resorting to some poor translation of foreign language sources. I think the Japanese right-wing views can be presented in the section describing the recent Abe comment. Etimesoy 03:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I presume you refer to Yoshida and not Yoshiaki Yoshimi as the later is a respected scholar who has received international recognition... --Flying tiger 16:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

About the material of the United States

Is not an official document of the United States worthy? The user who directs New York Times keeps deleting an official document of the United States.

UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Psychological Warfare Team Attached to U.S. Army Forces India-Burma Theater APO 689 (Date of Report: October 1, 1944") [30] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Necmate (talk • contribs) 16:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

First of all UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Psychological Warfare Team Attached to U.S. Army Forces India-Burma Theater APO 689 (Date of Report: October 1, 1944") are reliable published secondary sources. Please read what I write below.Tropicaljet 06:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it is the official policy of Wikipedia to prefer reliable secondary sources over primary sources. See discussion above. CronusXT 17:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Please explain the reason why this first information cannot be trusted. The official statement of the U.S.Army will be able to be trusted more than the newspaper article. And, does not the policy of Wikipedia trust Uncle Sam's official information? --Necmate 17:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Read this WP:A. Of couse, if there are primary sources, it is the official policy of Wikipedia to prefer primary souces over secondary souces.Tropicaljet 18:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

No, you read the WP:A. Quoting: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible". How could you possibly misunderstand that sentence? Maybe somebody with such a limited proficieny in English should refrain from editing the English language Wikipedia. Mackan 23:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

We were misclassifyed the report. First of all the UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Psychological Warfare Team Attached to U.S. Army Forces India-Burma Theater APO 689 (Date of Report: October 1, 1944") [22] is reliable published secondary sources. Read the below. Tropicaljet 09:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you guys read English? Tropicaljet, you've got it backwards. "Primary source material that has been published by a reliable source may be used for the purposes of attribution in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it's easy to misuse primary sources." "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible." OpieNn 18:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you read this? "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge. " . In descripitive claims's radius, the primary souces is authoritative from WP:A.Tropicaljet 19:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible." Here, it's possible to find reliable, published secondary sources, so Wikipedia articles should rely on them, not primary sources.
• "Primary sources are documents or people close to the situation you are writing about. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident, and the White House's summary of a president's speech are primary sources." The report you are citing is a primary source, close to the situation itself. The newspapers are secondary sources that "analyze and/or interpret other material, usually primary source material."
• "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims": If there are no reliable published secondary sources, then you may rely on primary sources, but even then, you can only say "One report on an interview with 20 comfort women in Burma in 1944 states that ... "; you cannot make a claim about comfort women based on that primary source.
• "Primary source material that has been published by a reliable source": exordio.com is not a reliable source.
• "For the purposes of attribution": you can only say "One report on an interview with 20 comfort women in Burma in 1944 states that ..."; you cannot make a claim about comfort women in general.
• "But only with care, because it's easy to misuse primary sources": As WP:A says, the Bible says a lot of strange things, but you won't find them in the Wikipedia article, unless you find a reliable secondary source citing to the particular sentence. You want to find a secondary source to evaluate the validity, context and meaning, you cannot do it yourself. OpieNn 22:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

First of all the UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Psychological Warfare Team Attached to U.S. Army Forces India-Burma Theater APO 689 (Date of Report: October 1, 1944") [31] is reliable published secondary sources. In this case, comfort womens are the An eyewitness account of a traffic accident and parties hereto. And Yasuji Kaneko's evidences are also Primary source as parties hereto. Because when the report was made,they didn't carried on business at the brothel of course. I can understand what WP:A says. They say "but only with care, because it's easy to misuse primary sources". It holds true to the Yasuji Kaneko's evidences.Tropicaljet 06:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Should we really have to go through all of this?? Japanese editors with little to no knowledge of English who can't, and don't want to, understand. Could you please refrain from editing the English language Wikipedia? Read this again, "Primary sources are documents or people close to the situation you are writing about. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident, and the White House's summary of a president's speech are primary sources." "The report you are citing is a primary source, close to the situation itself. The newspapers are secondary sources that "analyze and/or interpret other material, usually primary source material". Modern day newspapers are far better sources. Please stop repeating yourself because you are not making any sense." Mackan 09:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

First of all you must stop citing Yasuji Kaneko's evidences and comfort women's evidences as primary source. And US report is also secondary souces as it "analyze and/or interpret" those evidences. You (and I) misclassified the reports. Of cause in many cases newspapers are secondary sources. But those sometimes make mistakes, as we know. And the academic papers and governmental research report are also or more reliable secondary sources. Tropicaljet 09:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Captured "comfort girls" were definitely afraid that Japanese soldiers might kill other "comfort girls" still staying in Japanese Army if the news of their capture were known to them judging by the sentence inthe UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION Psychological Warfare Team Attached to U.S. Army Forces India-Burma Theater APO 689 (Date of Report: October 1, 1944") [32]

"Requests They asked that leaflets telling of the capture of the "comfort girls" should not be used for it would endanger the lives of other girls if the Army knew of their capture." [33]220.76.64.71 16:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Blog about Ianfu in English

Since the reporters of Western media can't read Japanese sources, they write many wrong stories. So we set up a blog that presents detabase about Ianfu in English, [34]. At least read the articles collected here before you write nonsense based on the articles by illiterate reporters.Ikedanobuo 09:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

"Nonsense based on articles by illeterate reporters". That's a bit rich coming from someone who writes nonsense based on information obviously gained from the Japanese media - one of the lowest quality, least trustworthy, least objective and unprofessional in the developed world (only 1% of Japanese reporters have a journalism degree). But there again I don't blame you, because you actually believe that the rest of the world is being deceived, not yourself. Have a look at this article about the truth about the Japan's news industry - [35] - the quicker the Japanese public realise how much bullshit is being rammed down their throats, the better it would be for the future of Japan. Phonemonkey 13:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Show me at least one examle what nonsense I wrote. If you can't, you are bullshit, Phonemonkey. Ikedanobuo 02:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Sweeping statements such as "comfort women were commercial prositutes" on the back of evidence that a handful of them were paid is exactly the sort of nonsense I have come to expect from Japanese weekly trash-mags.Phonemonkey 09:33, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Phonemonkey, I don't have any strong opinions about this comfort women entry, but as a person who used to live in Japan for some thirty years I would like to point out a few things here. One, majority of major Japanese media in the post WWII-era have long been taking somewhat irresponsible attitutes on sensitive matters like this, that is, they intentionally or unintentionally tend to write articles that may cause least disputes to get through -- in most cases in favor of the far-left who had a huge power in the country. In this sense Japanese people have been suffering from a lack of highly neutral sources of information on political issues. If you call this lack of journalist spirit, that perhaps is true. What's happening in Japan after the rise of the Internet is one way exactly what you hoped, people are given opportunities to get access to sources that are different from, and in many cases less biased, than what they were limited to. Therefore, if you say Japanese media are low quality, that argument doesn't necessarily hold for the sources people like Ikedanobuo used, as far as I could observe. Two, although I admit Japanese media sometimes behaves weirdly, (like they don't mention some scandals that may be important for citizens to know) I think I can say for things they decide to write, they make mostly higher quality articles than many of other countries' media, as far as I know (although I only know American media well). Prevalence of journalism degrees is not necessarily a good measure of quality of journalism in a country given different social stroctures. 208.72.137.139 13:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Japanese site of Wikipedia

This is the article in Japanese about Ianfu.[36] It is a balanced description that represents the consensus among historians in Japan. It says the Ianfu were commercial prostitutes. Can you read it?

And the article about Seiji Yoshida[37] says he was a liar. No dispute in Japan. But Koreans still believe his "confession" because their textbooks still publish his bogus confession.Ikedanobuo 12:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Stop trying to suggest everybody who disagrees with you is Korean, it's racist, upsetting, and furthermore, it is not true. I've never even set my foot in Korea. Mackan 14:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

He never say you are Korean as described above. He say only that Koreans think so. Read again in repose please. Tropicaljet 16:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

User Ikeda Nobuo

Ikeda Nobuo is in his private blog asking (in Japanese) people to vandalize this article. [38] He is asking for "2channelers" (see 2channel) to make a "matsuri" (festival) out of the article ("... anonymous writers have long used third-party online bulletin boards such as "2 channel" to criticize individuals and corporations in a phenomenon known as matsuri ..." definition from an article in The Japan Times, see [39]). He also describes how anonymous users can revert the article up to 3 times (he suggests the "Koreans" who are spreading lies about Japan are doing it), but paired with his encouragement to 2channelers to make a "matsuri" out of the article, one can also see it as instructions of how to keep on reverting the article. He also goes on to say: "Note: The article has (unfortunately*) been half protected. But registered users can edit the article, so please try and do it" (追記：とうとう半保護されてしまった。しかし登録ユーザーは書き込めるので、やってみてください。) *While a word meaning unfortunately isn't used, the "shimatta" form means that something has suddenly happened/ended, and does in this context convey a sense of it being "unfortunate". He also says the the "lies presented in the article are a disgrace to every Japanese". Mackan 14:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

In a response to somebody who posts about how there already is a thread on 2channel where people are discussing "the lies of Wikipedia", Ikeda says: "Don't act tough in the thread, write it on Wikipedia instead. It doesn't matter the least how bad your English is. The others ("the other side") are all messed up too anyway". I really do not think this kind of behaviour will do any good for this article at all. Isn't this what is referred to as "meatpuppetry"? Mackan 14:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the thread [40], where 2channelers are encouraging each other to revert this article, or delete information they don't like. A lot of racist bigotry here, Koreans are for example referred to as "sankokujin", an extremely racist term.Mackan 15:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Comments above has translated Mr. Ikeda's intent wrongfully, and should be recognized as a personal attack which must be prohibited. Especially, Mr. Ikeda never said "unfortunately" on the note "Note: The article has (unfortunately*) been half protected. But registered users can edit the article, so please try and do it" Whether on purpose or not, please don't mislead the readers.

Please be careful what you call a personal attack (read up on WP:NPA). No serious editor would categorize my comments as such. Please read what I wrote concerning the word "unfortunately" instead of trying to miscredit me. If you have any problems with my translation, feel free to provide a better one yourself. While I'm not a native Japanese speaker, I do have a JLPT level 1 certificate, and I did run through my translation with a Japanese native speaker to make sure I wasn't making any mistakes. Mackan 15:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting to see that Ikeda Nobuo edited this talk page (different heading) after my comments were written, so it seems quite likely that he saw my comments. Still, an anonymous user, with no previous edits on record choses to respond [41]. Ikeda, few will think of this as a coincidence. Mackan 15:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Mackan, your translation of "shimatta" is correct, but not in this case, since there are many meanings. In this case, Mr. Ikeda welcomed the half protection, since many of unknown users kept erasing some articles and changes, mainly he wrote. But it is unusual for English Wikipedia to become half protected, therefore Mr. Ikeda used phrase "shimatta" as expressing his surprisement(there is such usage of "shimatta"). I know Japanese is difficult, and you might working hard translating, but you are still misleading.Kenny W. 15:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I object to "Japanese is difficult", it's a foul underhand attempt to miscredit me. As I said, I ran it through with a native Japanese, who agreed with my translation. Yes, if you read the paragraph before the note, you can get the impression that Ikeda is welcoming the block, but then again, what part of "make a matsuri out of it!" and the line following the "shimatta", "but you can still edit if you are registered, so try and do it!" goes well together with that? But nevertheless, whether if he said "unfortunately" or not does not really matter. What about the fact that he asks 2channelers to make a matsuri out of it? Mackan 15:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Interesting that once again, a completely new user responds to my comments, instead of Ikeda. Mackan 15:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

>Mackan. You are axiomatically doing personal attack to User Ikeda Nobuo by malicious translation. As said above Mr. Ikeda never said "unfortunately" on the note. In this case "simatta(しまった）" means only "have been done". You are a malicious translator. We should give a welcome to new comers with their talents for Wikipedia society. Stop personal attack immediately.Tropicaljet 15:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Mackan, Since most of Japanese are not good at English writing (including me), they are hesitating to write comments like this. But since there are many foreigners misunderstanding the present situation (including characteristic of Mr. Ikeda), because of this literature problem, I just couldn't keep quiet looking at your insults. It is true that Mr. Ikeda "ironically" asked 2 channelers to prevent unknown person erasing the articles on "Confort Women". However, he hates 2 channelers or their famous habit of "matsuri", but since there are too many unknown person against Mr. Ikeda himself on editting(erasing) battle of the article, he "ironically" asked 2 channelers just to prevent erasing articles, not to make distruction (everyone can see this by checking the logs, how Mr. Ikeda personally worked hard on preventing such continued "erasing" on the "Comfort Woman" page). However, I personally think it was Mr. Ikeda's mistake that he asked help from 2 channelers, even ironically or on good purpose. Since non-Japanese speaker like you can make wrong translation so easily. Ask your native Japanese friend once again, together with my comment.Kenny W. 16:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I have not insulted Ikeda and I am not misunderstanding anything because of a "literature problem". Yeah, nice try, "I did ask 2channelers to make a matsuri out of the article, but it was... ironic!!". I fail to see the irony, in the post as well as in the reply "こっちのスレで内弁慶してないで、Wikipediaに書いてよ。英語力なんかどうでもいい。向こうもめちゃくちゃだから" ("Don't act tough in the thread, write it on Wikipedia instead. It doesn't matter the least how bad your English is. The others ("the other side") are all messed up too anyway"). Also, could somebody do a sockpuppet lookup on User:Kenny W., it seems entirely unlikely to me that the person behind that user is anybody but Ikeda. Mackan 16:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Mackan, it is yourself who should be saying shimatta in this case. Your incorrect cite from Ikeda-san shows your malicious intention to do personal attack on him. In the two sentences you cited and translated, "so try and do it!" and "but you can still edit if you are registered, so try and do it!", there's no exclamation marks in the original sentences. You MUST explain where those exclamation marks came from. Don't mislead the readers who can only read English. If you can read Japanese, there's no room for misinterpretation about this. Ikeda-san was just being ironic and felt tired about this issue.

Do you really think the matter at hand is whether Ikeda used exclamation marks or not? Although I agree they are an obvious interpretation from my side (as exclamation marks are used differently in Japanese and in English), and as such maybe shouldn't have been there, but not using exclamation marks does in no way add a sense of irony to the statement. I will repeat that I think the way Ikeda wrote it, it gives a sense of he regarding it as "unfortunate", but even if you honestly disagree with that, it seems extremely trivial to me. I have no malicious intent, which I do not think who honestly reads through my comments will think. Also please sign your comments using four tilde. Mackan 16:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

If you honestly insist either (1)exclamation mark doesn't make a big difference, (2) exclamation marks are used differently in Japanese and in English especially in this case, I don't think your Japanese reading skill is reliable. Did you get the subtle nuance of the "yo" in "Matsurini shite yo". It's obvious to JAPANESE readers that a professor like Ikeda-san would never use "yo" in his writing, thus, the sentence was meant to be irony. This is in no way a trivial nitpicking. If you still insist so, I must assume you are making a wrong impression of him to English readers on purpose. I'm quite new to this site, and didn't know how to sign my comment. I'll try. 124.255.13.139 17:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, Mr smarty-pants, how do you explain this then? "こっちのスレで内弁慶してないで、Wikipediaに書いてよ。英語力なんかどうでもいい。向こうもめちゃくちゃだから". Or "しかし登録ユーザーは書き込めるので、やってみてください". Explain the irony to those of us "western barbarians" who obvoiusly fail to see the subtle nuances of this bullshit.Mackan 19:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, if you deny that there is a difference in the usage of exclamation marks in Japanese and English, I feel forced to question YOUR knowledge of ENGLISH. Mackan 19:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

First, you added this expression "western barbarians" on your own. Don't write your interpretation as if it was somebody else's words. You are misleading readers. Nobody, except you, used that term. Is this the ACCURACY you were talking about? Such an emotional and subjective attitude which resulted in inaccuracy made me think whether you qualify as an editor. Few would think that somebody so imprudent can write a well-balanced and objective description. Second, if there's a difference in the usage of an exclamation mark between Japanese and English, please give me an example with a simple sentence. I don't think there's any. Third, please teach me some basic English since it's not my language. Do these sentences below convey exactly the same thing in English? (1) make a matsuri out of it! (2) make a matsuri out of it. Forth, please do not get emotional and use respectful words, or at least stop using disrespectful words for your own sake. 124.255.13.139 14:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Mackan, you have chosen only small parts of Mr. Ikeda's blog, which looks like he encouraged "matsuri". Mr. Ikeda only asked people to write on Wikipedia, if someone has certain opinion, just like what I am doing right now. It seems like you have proper Japanese reading skill and have read most of Mr.Ikeda's article, however, you are selecting only parts which will favor your prejudice to Mr. Ikeda. If you truly believed about Mr. Ikeda's intent on this issue without prejudice, and if all of your comments(especially with your native Japanese friend) are true, please ask your Japanese friend once again.Kenny W. 16:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

"Mr. Ikeda only asked people to write on Wikipedia, if someone has certain opinion". That is referred to as meatpuppetry here, and is considered highly inappropriate or unacceptable (and that's a quote). See the link I posted below. Mackan 21:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a person who makes the other opinion, and is a person who makes an opposite opinion. A bad person often throws one of information, and conceals one of information. Is the encyclopedia a tool to try to confine people in narrow knowledge, and to sweep away people by the knowledge of the current? The encyclopedia is sure to exist to oppose such a person. Too a lot of one-sided deletions to criticize Japan were seen. Elementy 20:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Mackan (let me put Dear, since I felt some respect talking with you), let me add few more things. First, I am not a sockpuppet of Mr.Ikeda. I read his articles, but I am not trusting him 100%. However, I think the comment you criticized me as his sockpuppet already showed existence of your prejudice. Second, please ask your Japanese friend with total impression of Nobuo Ikeda`s blog, since words he used in the article is so poor (this is a part I don't trust him 100%) that will sometimes make even Japanese to confuse. By the way, I read this site thoroughly, but this is a total disaster. I see only few people participating in this arguement, even this matter is extremely important and sensitive to whole Japanese. Deleting reference? comments? whicheverside did this first, please never do it again. This is a matter which might conclude our ancient soldiers were all rapist, even they were ordinal soldiers, and nothing doing special compare from other nation`s soldiers in middle 20th century, without real observation or truly reliable evidence. Those of you who are not Japanese, do you have such seriousness? If you have such, please continue with this argument. I have to study more to make effective participation with this issue. Too heavy, man. Kenny W. 20:33, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

After realising Ikeda's blog was picked up by hatena I see how it's POSSIBLE you're not a sockpuppet (but a meatpuppet, see Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppets), but the fact that Ikeda does not reply himself, when he is apparently in front of his computer, and reading these very lines (see his blog) would make anybody suspicious, and does not necessarily show any "prejudice" towards him. Although any such prejudice stems from the way he has been behaving on Wikipedia, breaking policies and guidelines and revert-warring. Mackan 20:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Mackan, "shimatta" in this context is the past tense for "shimau". A prestigious Japanese dictionary Kojien explains it as follows: (多く、助動詞タを伴って) もはやどうにもならない、とりかえしのつかないことになるの意を表す。「秘密文書を人に見せて—・った」「大事な品を雨にあてて—・う」 I won't translate it into English since you can read Japanese. It obviously doesn't mean suddenness, and doesn't have the slightest sense of being unfortunate even considering the context. You should delete the word "unfortunately" from your translation. --Tkh 21:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

As I've already stated, whether or not what Ikeda said conveyed a sense of the half-protect being "unfortunate" (which is all I ever suggested), it is not of any relevance (which is one of the reasons I put it in brackets). Ikeda has broken against Wikipedia policies (see the meatpuppet link I posted above) by canvassing this article and asking people to edit it. And, I'd like to add that while it's really really easy to slam a non-native Japanese person's Japanese, I think you and everybody else who are doing it are being dishonest. As I have previously said, I asked a Japanese acquintance if she agreed to that the writer thought of it as unfortunate, and she said "yes". Mackan 21:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Saying that I'm being dishonest is a personal attack. I seek correctness. The fact that Ikeda broke Wikipedia rules is totally irrelevant to the discussion on the use of the word "unfortunate". As I quoted the definition of "shimau" above, the word doesn't mean suddenness. Since the logical ground of your justification has been refuted, you should delete the use of "unfortunate". The fact that you put the word in brackets doesn't preclude you from critique. You seem to give special credit to your Japanese friend, but do you really think she is more credible than the dictionary definition? Even a native speaker can be wrong in understanding the meaning of a word. --Tkh 22:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not a personal attack. Read what I said again and read WP:NPA. Also, read this [42]

動詞の連用形に助詞「て（で）」を添えた形に付いて、その動作がすっかり終わる、その状態が完成することを表す。終わったことを強調したり、不本意である、困ったことになった、などの気持ちを添えたりすることもある。(... (the "shimau" form can also emphasize that something has ended, or add a feeling that it's against one's inclination, or that you were troubled by it, etc".

There you go, now stop pretending you didn't know that already. Mackan 22:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

You are diverting the discussion. I refuted the use of "suddenness" in your justification of the use of the word "unfortunate". Now you looked up an online dictionary to quote the definition in favor of you? At least that deinition is not on Kojien, therefore it's not a widely accepted definition. Even the definition is correct, it can convey one's feeling. How do you know Ikeda's feeling? As for the personal attack remark, labeling me as being dishonest is definitely an insult to me and therefore considered a personal attack. You should reread WP:NPA. --Tkh 23:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Suddenness? Heck, I don't give a damn if it says suddenness, ok, so it doesn't mean it ended suddenly, who cares?? I might have used the word "suddenly" without taking precautions, wooh. But do you honestly care whether or not there is a sense of suddenness?? Does it carry any implications for anything whatsoever?! "Ikeda does not think it happened all of a sudden!!!". YOU are diverting the discussion. So just cut it out, right there. Also, what you argued for was not that I delete the word "suddenly" in "suddenly happened/ended", this is what you said: "You should delete the word "unfortunately" from your translation". To be honest, you are really not helping this discussion in any way. Just stop being obnoxious. Stop trying to win cheap points.Mackan 23:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, if you think anything I've said has constitued a personal attack, feel perfectly free to report me to an admin and see what they say. But stop trying to use that accusation as a bat in this debate. Mackan 23:29, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

You insulted me in the first place, then I said that was a personal attack towards me. Is it a bat in the debate? No, I wanted you to stop insulting me. Did you actually have to label me as being dishonest? I think you need to read WP:AGF. I'll report to the admin next time you insult me, though I don't think it will happen. --Tkh 00:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You wrote "the "shimatta" form means that something has suddenly happened/ended, and does in this context convey a sense of it being "unfortunate"" as the justifications to use the word unfortunate. Since the use of "suddenly" is refuted by me, you only rely on your interpretation of the entire context of the Ikeda's blog entry. That doesn't suffice to justify the use of "unfortunate". It has been shown that not everybody agrees with your interpretation. Why don't you just delete a word? Is that so hard to do? --Tkh 00:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I stand by the translation I gave as correct. Why is it so important for you to have that word deleted? You have provided your opinion of the usage, and it's there for anybody to read. Mackan 00:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you think every reader who read your translation would read my comments? I don't think so. If you think your addition of the word "unfortunate" is so correct, you should give logical grounds for it, not by relying on the context. Be specific. --Tkh 00:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Mackan, OK, you can call me as sockpuppet or meatpuppet or whatever you want, since it is almost impossible to ordinary Japanese to reach here. I may be inspired by Mr. Ikeda. He may be changed and erased a lot of article in Wikipedia (I don't think he was the only one, though) and he wrote somewhatlike encouraging 2 channelers to attack this site. Ironically, no 2 channelers will listen to him, since 2 channelers and Ikeda is in dispute (I think you should know this, if you read his blog). I read the blog once again and I saw you made a comment in Japanese, however, you are still misunderstanding and misleading. Are you sure that you asked your friend about total impression of Ikeda's blog? It may be true that our ancestory soldiers are all organized rapists, it may be true that Japanese government didn't apologize properly, however, you shouldn't criticize Ikeda personally by creating thread like this. I say this is too excessive, which I personally think you have to apologize to Ikeda, in order to keep this Wikipedia neutral.Kenny W. 22:19, 15 March 2007 (UTC) Dear Mackan, asking apologize may be little excessive (you will never do this, anyway), since your general translation is not wrong gramatically (still misunderstanding + misleading). However, I think you should know how important to criticize person with a thread like this, in order to maintain your neutrality as well. Finally, there aren't any evidence that you aren't a sockpuppet or meatpuppet of someoneelse.Kenny W. 22:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I find what you say preposterous. Ikeda broke Wikipedia policies and is partly responsible for this article descending into complete chaos, by canvassing it on his blog. No matter how you translate what he wrote, this is in effect what he has done. I have simply pointed this out here. If Ikeda needs an apology, after behaving badly and having it pointed out to him and others, he does not belong in a university, let alone on Wikipedia. Now, Ikeda, I bet you will be reading this, and unless you actually demand an apology, what I just said is all hypotethical. I do not wish to make any more inflammatory statements. Let's co-operate and find some common ground, and make a better article, based on Wikipedia guidelines, not on personal opinions/emotions. Mackan 23:01, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, Dear "Kenny", please realise that me calling you a meatpuppet (while not being a very nice-sounding word) is not an insult, but a statement of fact, see WP:DUCK, if you read the definition of the word at the link I provided, you will realise there is no malicious intent. But you are a meatpuppet. Mackan 23:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, it should be obvious to anybody I'm not a single account user (meatpuppet), if you look at my edit history. I've been around on Wikipedia for almost 2 years, and I've edited articles ranging from the Swedish desert semla to articles on Genghis Khan. And as a long time user, the possibility that I'm a sockpuppet seems rather low. There is however no evidence that I'm not a sockpuppeteer, but any such accusation would be shattered with a simple ip-check. I have not made use of a single sockpuppet during my almost two years at Wikipedia. Mackan 23:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Mackan, now since Ikeda showed up, my exitence is may be not important to you at all. I didn't know that I need to hang around in the world of Wikipedia for certain period of time and receive a licence call "I`m not a meatpuppet" in order to make a discuss in place like this. Too harsh for Japanese newcomers, neutral discussion? nearly impossible. Still, I will say thank you for teaching me what is a meatpuppet. Now I`m out.Kenny W. 01:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't understand what's going on. As is evident in the history, I tried to make this article neutral, but OpieNn and other users reverted it again and again. I reported it to the admin, but they didn't respond. So I reported that Wikipedia was abused in the 3/15 article of my blog. Since it was an editing war, the number of participants is important. "2 channel" is a joke. It's a waste of time to discuss a joke.

The real problem is, most of you are illiterate for Japanese. Since the controversy over the Ianfu was mostly discussed in Japanese, the information that can be read in English is old and biased. In Japan, even the Asahi Shimbun has acknowledged that there was no evidence that the Army abducted women. This is the consensus among Japanese historians including even Yoshimi. No other media than the Asahi insists such nonsense. In short, the "Jugun Ianfu" issue was fabricated by the Asahi, and it was completely refuted.

However, the illiterate reporters of NYT, BBC and other western media wrote many wrong stories relying on the biased information by the Asahi. And you are quoting it. However, as the fundamental claim that there were abduction by the Army is refuted, your argument is totally nonsense.

The protected article is inappropriate. I suspect the admin (A Train) would be also biased because he freezed the wrong version of the story. It begins with the phrase "Comfort women (Japanese: 慰安婦, ianfu?) or military comfort women (Japanese: 従軍慰安婦, jūgun-ianfu?)..." There is no such thing as "jūgun-ianfu". No such word was used during the war. It was fabricated by a writer and magnified by the Asahi. Other part is also full of errors insulting Japan and Japanese people without historical ground. Shame on you, Wikipedia. Ikedanobuo 00:06, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Your edits to the article were not neutral, Ikeda. You gave far too much weight to the few sources you have decided are true. You keep on suggesting Asahi Shimbun forged evidence. What evidence do you have for this claim? Also, as I posted below, while you apparently regard Japan to be the cradle of truth for things Japanese, please realise it's Wikipedia's intention to give a worldwide perspective. Even if the worldwide perspective is, according to some, all lies.Mackan 00:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

"Few sources"? No kidding. I supplied many sources (books and articles on the Web) in my article you deleted. For example, Prof. Hata's book, "Ianfu to senjo no sei" refutes all the claims by the Asahi and Yoshimi, and concluded that there was no evidence of abduction. Yoshimi admitted Hata's criticism. Unfortunately the book is out of print now, but you can read any book by Hata, for example, "Showa-shi no nazo wo ou"[43] He isn't a revisionist but a respected historian in this field. I can quote many other sources, for example, "Nikkan rekishi mondai no shinjitsu"[44] by Prof. Tsutomu Nishioka, who is a respected specialist concerning Korea. If you google "慰安婦", you'll find more than 2.7 million articles on the Web, of which more than 90 per cent refute the Asahi's claim. It's only that foreign people can't read them. Ikedanobuo 01:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, I believe I supplied you with a link on "meatpuppetry". It's an official policy on this Wikipedia. Please read up on it. Mackan 00:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It's pointless to argue "meatpuppetry" because I encouraged the readers of my blog to participate in writing the article, which is the spirit of Wikipedia. I never urged reversion. Accidentally, next week I'll meet Jimmy Wales in a symposium[45], so I'll discuss this issue with him. We welcome any participants to the symposium from Wikipedia. Ikedanobuo 01:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If you want to say the term "従軍慰安婦, jūgun-ianfu" was not used at the time, then all you have to do is to state it somewhere in the article and back it up with a reliable source. The fact is that the term exists today and is recognised widely means it warrents a mention in the article. Phonemonkey 01:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to think that publicity about Japanese war crimes somehow reflects badly on modern day Japan. Here's a quote from your blog: これが後世まで歴史に残るとなると、外交の問題である以上に日本人全体にとって屈辱である。Translation: "if this is what is recorded as history until future generations, then not only would it be a diplomatic issue but it would be an "embarassment" (can't think of a better translation) to all Japanese people". The fact is, most people worldwide are aware that there are a great many countries with sins from the past and are also aware that this is not a reflection of people in those countries today. Nobody apart from ignorant bigots stuck in history would look down on modern-day Germans, Americans or Brits for example, because of historical events such as Nazism, slavery or imperialism. Why can't you make a clean break from the past? Here's another quote, this time from a comment left on your blog: 日本人が世界でレイプ魔扱いされるのがイヤだったら、がんばって編集合戦に勝つしかないね。"If you don't like the idea of (us) Japanese being treated as rapists round the world, we'll have to try to win the edit war". I don't know why you would be concerned that anyone in the world would believe that the Japanese are a race of rapists on the basis of wartime events more than half a century ago. What you and many others don't seem to realise is that if there is one way of dragging modern-day Japan's name through the mud then it is exactly what you are doing. I hope you realise that what you are doing is far more of an embarrasment to Japan than anything which comes out of history. Phonemonkey 01:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to make sure that there's no misunderstanding, I'm happy to accept that Ikeda is trying to contribute to wikipedia constructively (unlike, for example ShinjukuXYZ et al). I also think that his call for a "matsuri" does look vaguely tongue-in-cheek because he does have a slight dig at 2channellers at the same time. I haven't studied the sources carefully enough to have a clear opinion about what or how they should be cited. I'm only questioning his motive. "これは日本政府と日本人を侮辱する由々しき問題だ - this is a serious problem which insults the Japanese government and people". No it isn't, Ikeda, please forget your ideas about insults, national honour, or political agenda. It is only about history and making an encyclopedia article. Phonemonkey 02:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

It is already a political issue, because the article in my blog was read by more than 30,000 people including government officials. Most of them are much angry about Wikipedia's unfair treatment of historical facts. For example, I contested the validity of the conjecture that the number of Ianfu was 200,000 with its sources by Hata, but you deleted it. If you blame Japanese on the ground of facts, it will be a historical discussion. But if you accuse them of the crime they didn't commit, it is an insult. Ikedanobuo 04:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

So apparently I deleted your reference to Hata. If I did, it was accidental. But when did I do this? Please point to me. Phonemonkey 09:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

After all, what are you discussing about my articles and others' comments, folks? Your discussion about しまった and other expression doesn't make sense. Learn more about Japanese before you attack Japan. Ikedanobuo 04:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is attacking Japan. Your comments aren't making any sense. Please learn more about Wikipedia before you attack it. I was hoping we would be able to reach common grounds, but you seem to show no interest in such efforts. Mark my words, Ikeda, if you do not change your pompous "I'm a professor, lah-di-dah, Asahi lies, western people know nothing about Japan and they all lie"-attitude, this article will stay locked up for a lot longer than it should have to be. Mackan 08:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Please let me translate Mr. Ikeda's original article on his blog page.

(Translation strat) The article on Comfort women in wikipedia is vandalized and messed up by (anonymous persons who seem to be) Koreans. It is a serious problem that an issue of this much political sensitiveness gets largely tampered. I tried to correct them, but since an editing war as fierce as 500 modifications being made in about 10 days is going on, I gave up. I reported to the administrator, but he does not move. Will somebody please fight against this. The only people who have the energy (and spare time) to rival this may be the 2-channelers. Will somebody make a new thread* and start “festival”.

As soon as I corrected the over estimated “forced transportation of 200,000 women”, my modification was reverted. When I wrote a note that there is room for doubt of the creditworthiness of the “testimonies” made by liars like Yoshida Seiji and Kaneko Yasuji, even such notes were deleted. Since the untruth advertised by Asahi Newspaper was endorsed by Kono Comments, the delusion of “forced transportation of comfort women” which has been denied by historians, (which even Japan Communist Party related Mr. Yoshimi denies,) has become “world common knowledge”. If this remains in history record for ages, it is more than a foreign affairs issue and is humiliation for all Japanese.

What is more, as you can tell if you look at the editing history, one person is repeating revert, using plural anonymous IP’s. This is to entirely wipe out someone else’s contribution. If someone reverts 3 times with one ID, a warning saying “Delist” comes out. However, by changing anonymous ID’s, one can repeat reverting endlessly. Since this loophole is known for long, I cannot understand why anonymous ID’s are not banned. At the symposium next week, I want to ask Mr. Jimmy Wales on this point.

Post script: It has finally got half-protected. But since registered users can write, please try. Post script 2: It has been protected being tampered. This is a serious problem which insults Government of Japan and people of Japan. At the symposium next week, I want to discuss thoroughly with Mr. Wales. What is more surprising, this article including the comments has been translated and put in the talk page of wikipedia, and personal attack is continuing.

(Translation end) translator’s note*: “thread” is a page on a specific topic in the electric bulletin board “2 channel” —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.216.99.67 (talk • contribs) 03:16, March 16, 2007

Thank you very much! That's very helpful. --ElKevbo 08:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Misunderstand in background

Mackan's translation seems to neglect the nature of Ikeda's blog. Not misunderstood in reading Japanese.

To understand his irony, I suggest to see 2007 16 Janaualy of his blog. [46]

In that he says : "私も２ちゃんねるはほとんど読まないので、閉鎖されたとしても惜しむ気にはまったくならない。その功罪を精算すれば、日本で匿名性を悪用する習慣が定着し、Wikipediaまで汚染した害毒のほうがはるかに大きい。" means "I rarely read 2channel. Even if it dissapeared, I would not regret at all. Considering good and bad effect of it, the influence of bad anonymous custom is far bigger. It is even polluting Wikipedia. (his desire for extinction of 2channel continued.)"

And other day, He says:

"２ちゃんねるは、日本社会の汚物みたいなものだが、排泄物を見れば健康状態がわかるように、そこには社会の裏面が映し出されている。" menas "Although 2channel is something like shit of japanese society, it reflects the underside of society, as if you can assume health from your excretions."

So, ordinary blog's readers have understood that he hates 2channelers, and actually 2channlers are often offending him. He and 2channlers are in such relation.

Mackan's translation of "He is asking for 2channelers (see 2channel) to make a matsuri (festival) out of the article" is correct in translation, but should be read as "Hey 2channelers, you always enjoy dirty anonymousness and say what you want to say irresponsiblely in loud voice. But you cannot say a least thing against such a national insult, Can you?" So It is not real help.

Other than that, his blog always arosed his opponents more than approvals. Mackan's reaction here itself is one of proof. It is his nature. He and his ordinary readers recognize it well.

So, I of course don't think he did cavassing. He just stimulated people to participate in Wikipedia. For Wikipedia, this discussion section is possibly called a personal attack. No contribution for 'comfort women'. lssrt 19:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Page protection - 17:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

This article has been fully protected for seven days as per a request at WP:RFP. If an uninvolved admin is needed to make changes while the page is still protected, feel free to leave me a note. A Train ^{take the} 17:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

We have seven days to reach a consensus on what to do with the article, otherwise it is highly likely that the article will be locked again. Let's co-operate.

First of all, I think it's important that Ikeda Nobuo stops canvassing this article in his blog. As long as he is making inflammatory statements such as "this is an insult to the entire Japanese people", we will have irresponsible Japanese single account users flooding this talk page with incomprehensible English. Note that I'm not suggesting that no Japanese should participate in the debate, but if you have a look at this discussion page, it should be fairly obvious that we have many Japanese contributors who can not write comprehensibly in English.

Let's try and be constructive here and find some common ground. Ikeda says that Asahi Shimbun are publishing forged evidence concerning the number of comfort women (?), which in turn got picked up by the BBC as well as The NY Times. Ikeda is seeking out to spread what he thinks is the truth. Well, to be frank, Wikipedia does not work that way. Wikipedia is not a new source of information or the place to present original reserach (WP:OR), but is supposed to mirror the current debate, from a worldwide perspective. If there are claims (that are viewed as legitimate, somewhere) that they were not sex slaves, then maybe that should be mentioned in the opening paragraph. But if these claims are only supported by Japanese scholars, it should be noted that "Some/Many/XXX & YYY Japanese scholars disagree with this label, and instead state ZZZ". I know some editors here regard Japan as the cradle of truth when it comes to things Japanese, but Wikipedia is supposed to give a worldwide perspective. I know that the figure "200,000" women is heavily debated in Japan. I think that the heading should state that there are different estimates, but once again, if one of the numbers are only quoted in Japanese sources and not Western ones, that should be noted too.

The one, concrete change I want to suggest should be done to the article as it is now, is to state in the opening line that there are different estimates about how many ianfu there were, ranging from 20,000 (?) to 200,000, although the 200,000 is the one most widely cited. It should also state that they are largely referred to as sex slaves, but there are some/many/XX Japanese scholars who suggest they were "highly paid prostitues"/whatever it is they state.

If Ikeda wants to remark about Asahi's claims that they are false, he will need a reliable source suggesting so. See WP:A. Actually, the first step to getting anywhere on this article is having everybody read up on that very policy. Let's make sure all (legitimte) claims are adequately presented in the article, and that EVERYTHING which can be regarded as inflammatory (in this article, basically EVERYTHING) is properly referenced and attributed.

I haven't been very active in this debate, and I have myself not been very good at providing a rationale for the RVs I made, but this is an opportunity for all of us to turn this ship around now and here. To those of you who have been using sockpuppets, could you please now stop using them. They will not help you in any way because if we can't reach a consensus, the reverts will continue, and the article will be locked up in a state nobody is happy with. Mackan 22:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

"but once again, if one of the numbers are only quoted in Japanese sources and not Western ones, that should be noted too." This part of your comment looks somewhat Western-biased. Historians classify sources by grade and Wikipedia says to follow that manner.

'NPOV FAQ of Anglo-American' also says that its weight on angro-amerian comes from number of participants, not from language. Western sources don't themselves mean any special, especially in the Eastern history, rather they fall into secondary-or-below ones.

And for this super-politically sensetive topic, your view of 'mirror the current debate' seems only to encourage real political propaganda, both inside and outside of Wikipedia. Exaggerately saying, it can even consist of distant beginning of future war. Studies of international politics say that mutual misunderstanding of national power is essential cause of war.

So, to first settle our edit war, what really important is reasonable attitude to treat sources. Sources should be treated by grade not by language. If someone against single-language-only sources, he should ask in common language (i.e. English) what kind of source it is and should not revert easily. Without that, we would never get to real consensus. lssrt 13:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "reliable" sources? I quoted the books by Hata and Yoshimi. These are regarded as standard references in this field worldwide. Western media aren't reliable in reference with these books. So I proposed to use Western media's articles as long as they coincide with these scholarly works. You fell silent. Is it inconvenient for you to use these definitely reliable sources? Do you want to write as you believe even if it is a lie? Ikedanobuo 23:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

"They agree with my viewpoint" is not how we define reliable. Once again, please read our policy on reliable sources. --ElKevbo 23:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

No, you can't define the English word "reliable" as your jargon. Even if an article is "reliable" in your sense, it is not reliable if it doesn't correspond with the facts. I don't mean we should forbid to use the Western media. I proposed to use these secondary sources carefully and refer to the historical sources. For example, the number 300,000 can't be quoted because even Yoshimi (maximalist of the damage) doesn't make such estimate. In fact, Western media are all referring Yoshimi implicitly, which I include in the reference. So, logically, all historically reliable articles can be quoted. Why is it inconvenient for you? Ikedanobuo 00:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Your disagreement appears to be with our policies regarding reliable sources, not me. If you have evidence that is contrary to other published evidence, you are free to present that additional evidence in the article. You are not free, however, to delete well-sourced information. I don't understand what is hard to understand about this concept. Our threshold for inclusion is that the information has been published by a reliable source, not that it's "The Truth." The 300,000 figure has been published so it should be included, even if it is immediately followed by further evidence that "So-and-so believes the true number is lower" or something similar. If you can cite a reference that the original source of that number has refuted his or her earlier estimate(s), the original should still be included if only to explain the source of the error and why it's wrong. --ElKevbo 02:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

BBC only says "An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 women" without citing who estimated. The estimation is apparently not their own. So, what BBC is saying is that "There is an estimation made by someone that there were 200,000 comfort women." This case is different from the case where BBC reports "There were 200,000 comfort women." So, how about changing the words "a euphemism for some 200,000 women who" of the first sentence of the article to "a euphemism for women as many as 200,000 by some unknown estimate who"?61.24.66.192 19:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

No. We don't get to judge or modify what reliable sources have published. --ElKevbo 20:10, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's establish one thing. Estimates are views expressed in numbers. So, if there are several views or estimates, we should make clear whose wiew or estimate it is. Whose view is that there were 200,000 comfort women? Surely not BBC's.61.24.66.192 20:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems, with my limited knowledge, only two studies were done so far as to the number of comfort women. One was conducted by Prof. Yoshimi and the other by Prof. Hata. Both of them are Japanese. There seems to be no research done by Allies or Korean Government. So, it seems the BBC and other media are citing one of the two studies as "estimates" without crediting the name of the researchers.

If this is not the case, please write and let's discuss it under the section "Computational method of 200,000 women" in this talk page.61.24.66.192 13:20, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please go fairly.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It is necessary to put other theories about the matter without enough proof. A certain people try to delete the sentence, and to limit it to a narrow source without the discussion. Moreover, there is an opinion like　"it's Wikipedia's intention to give a worldwide perspective.（.Mackan 00:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC) ）". To mean those two is to transform Wikipedia from the encyclopedia to their speakers. The act is an enemy for knowledge. It is possible to express it well if there is an expression not good. It should not delete it.

Let's concretely show. The definition is vague with the sex slave. As for the expression, a person who bears the family's debt and works and ancient slavery are meant together. Soldier Kaneko's testimony is lasciviousness. It was deleted that the doubt to it existed. The explanation 100 yen's at that time to how many modern dollars it corresponding should not be deleted. It remains being concealed that the comfort woman had a lot of Japanese. It is abnormal to conceal the advertisement that recruits the comfort woman. It is shown that it is true that a general person knew the comfort woman's existence, and it was collected in the high level as a general business. It might have been various for practical purposes. However, it is unfair to try to conceal evidence and to give a worldwide opinion existence. Elementy 13:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You should note that this is a politically sensitive article watched by government officials of the country concerned. Current version is full of factual errors and almost a libel for Japanese government. It should be revised as soon as possible. Ikedanobuo 00:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Please list these factual errors, proposed alterations, reasoning and sources below (or in a new section). This is not a challenge but a request, so that we could come to some sort of an agreement.Phonemonkey 22:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Should we continue protection?

The protection is canceled by robot. Should we continue protection until we reach some agreement?218.216.99.67 01:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "Jugun Ianfu"

The word 従軍慰安婦(embedded comfort women) was not used during the WW2. It was invented by a writer Kakou Senda in 1973.[47] His book was full of factual errors and attacked by historians. Delete the word or add the notice. [User:Ikedanobuo|Ikedanobuo]] 04:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the rationale behind having to delete a word on the basis of it being allegedly invented after the event. I don't think the word "Holocaust" was used (in its present sense) during WW2 either. If, however, you wish to point out in the article that the term wasn't in use back then then please by all means do so. As long as you are able to back it up with reliable sources I don't think anybody could reasonably argue. Phonemonkey 08:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Not only there is no such word but there is no such thing: the Ianfu were commercial prostitutes, not "embedded" member of the Army. So Japanese government has never used the word. If you put the word on this article, such reservation should be noticed. Ikedanobuo 08:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For the third time, please feel free to note that the word did not exist at the time as long as you back it up with a reliable source.Phonemonkey 09:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

There are many sources if you can read Japanese. For example, Hata's book I quoted (but you deleted). Ikedanobuo 17:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

When did I delete it? Also if you refer to an online source it might be more helpful for readers. But anyway, when did I delete your quote? Phonemonkey 18:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

"Sex slaves" of American Army

In addition to the RAA[48] in Korean war, American Army set up sites for prostitution and committed "state rape" in the Vietnam War.[49] If you blame Japanese government, you should also blame the United States government, although it need not be included in this article. Ikedanobuo 08:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

* If the current worldview is that the US used sex slaves then sure, there's no reason why it shouldn't be a wikipedia article. But it's not, is it, Mr Ikeda?

Can you read English? I put a link for the article about RAA in Wikipedia in the post above. Ikedanobuo 17:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Where in the article about RAA does it say that the US used sex slaves? Phonemonkey 18:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I was a bit quick to jump to my guns there. The RAA article states that "there are testimonies from some women saying that they were coerced into service as bonded labor, and some Japanese sources even assert, albeit without proof, that the centers were in fact set up by the U.S. and the Japanese women in them were sex slaves." The article says it is "some Japanese sources" which claim this "without proof" and it is certainly not the current world view. Anyway, I don't understand why this is relevant to what we should do to the Comfort Woman article. Please feel free to elaborate if you think this is relevant..Phonemonkey 18:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems you can't read English. The article in Wikipedia says that RAA employed prostitutes for American soldiers in the Korean War. There are many proofs about it in the official documents of Japanese and American government. But there is no proof of coercion. This is identical to the case of the Ianfu. Is this truth inconvenient for your corrupted "worldview"? Ikedanobuo 04:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Ikeda, not only can I seemingly not read english but I think I am actually blind. Here is the Wikipedia RAA article as I find it today in full. I have looked high and low left right and centre and I am yet to find the bit where it says, as you quote, "The article in Wikipedia says that RAA employed prostitutes for American soldiers in the Korean War" . Where is it? Point it to me, Ikeda. Please use a big big arrow, preferably in glowing neon, so i don't miss it. Here is the article in full below:

"The Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA, 特殊慰安施設協会), or more literally Special Comfort Facility Association, was the official euphemism for the prostitution centers arranged for occupying U.S. armed forces by the Japanese Government after World War II. The RAA was created on August 28, 1945 by the Japanese Home Ministry to contain the sexual urges of the occupation forces and protect the main Japanese populace from rape. The RAA's own slogan was "For the country, a sexual breakwater to protect Japanese women" (お国のために日本女性を守る性の防波堤). In September, the system was extended to cover the entire country. Unlike wartime "comfort women," most employees of the RAA were Japanese women and no forcible kidnapping of women for recruitment by soldiers took place.[citation needed] According to most sources, the women were prostitutes recruited by advertisement as well as through agents.[citation needed] However, there are testimonies from some women saying that they were coerced into service as bonded labor, and some Japanese sources even assert, albeit without proof, that the centers were in fact set up by the U.S. and the Japanese women in them were sex slaves.[citation needed] In January 1946, the RAA was terminated by an order to cease all "public" prostitution. The ban is traditionally attributed to the efforts of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt but was almost certainly propelled by rapidly spreading venereal disease among the troops.[citation needed] "Phonemonkey 09:14, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

* Japan is not being "attacked", and nobody here is "blaming" the Japanese government. There's no original research here. We're here only to state the current world view, backed up by reliable sources.

* Why are you so concerned about protecting the honour of the Japanese government? It is just a political organisation which is there to spend tax money collected from Japan. If a wikipedia article paints a negative picture of Tokyo Metropolitan Government, would it offend you personally? Phonemonkey 09:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Ikeda deleberately trying to conceal the fact that RAA is established by Japanese government voluntarily. "The RAA was created on August 28, 1945 by the Japanese Home Ministry to contain the sexual urges of the occupation forces and protect the main Japanese populace from rape. The RAA's own slogan was "For the country, a sexual breakwater to protect Japanese women" (お国のために日本女性を守る性の防波堤). In September, the system was extended to cover the entire country." the Japanese Home Ministry endorsed bankloan for creating RAA.

That's a bit of a wild accusation -Ikeda has not made any edits to the RAA article so how can you say that? Unless you can back it up I don't think the above post is helpful to the debate. You've posted copies of the above in several places throughout the talk page - I've deleted the other ones as I assume they were accidental. Also, please sign your comments with four tildes. Phonemonkey 15:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Although the word 従軍慰安婦(embedded comfort women) may not appear in government documents, such words like 軍慰安所(gun ian sho military comfort station), 海軍慰安所(kaigun ian sho navy comfort station) and 陸軍慰安所(rikugun ian sho army comfort station) appear in official documents of Japanese Government. In "Compilation of Government-collected Documentary Materials Relating to Wartime 'Comfort Women' Volume 1" published by AWF, we can see the word 軍慰安所(military comfort station) in page 247 of PDF (or page 232 of original book), 海軍慰安所(navy comfort station) and 陸軍慰安所(army comfort station) in page 424 of PDF (or page 450 of original book) and in several other pages. I do not see much point discussing this word. 61.24.66.192 14:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

User61.24.66.192.There seem to have existed the comfort places beloging with army, the private comfort places, and the private comfort places only for army . though it is a guess.

Elementy 15:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Personal Attack
The paragraph above is copied three times in this page. It's a personal attack by a completely anonymous user (220.76.64.167) without signature. How do you think of this? Is this Wikipedia's way? Can I copy my message endlessly everywhere in this page? Ikedanobuo 15:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The comfort woman "Ianf" is a word at that time, and the comfort woman following to the army ,"Jugun Ianfu" is coinage of the present age. "従軍" and "Juugn</b"> are following to the army in literal translation. It is meant to move corresponding to the army, and to act under the protection. The term is used also for a martial nurse, the nurse of the Red Cross, and the war correspondent. However, there is occasionally a Japanese who interprets to follow to the army as to belong to the army. Moreover, the misunderstanding like abbreviation "Ianf" and a formal name "Jugun Ianfu" occurs easily in a Japanese custom sense. South Korea that uses the Chinese character often because of the influence might be so sensitive. It confuses children. It becomes a seed where the misunderstanding will be caused again in the future. Elementy 14:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Remove the picture of a girl of a comfort battalion in Rangoon. It has nothing to do with comfort women and outrageous for the members of battalion (a part of the Army). It makes this article even more laughable. Ikedanobuo 18:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If you are objecting to the use of the word "battalion" then don't you think rephrasing the caption is a more appropriate than removing the pcture altogether?Phonemonkey 18:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I am objecting the use of the picture, not the caption. These edits show that most of the editors are ignorant of even the basic fact that "comfort battalion", the battalion for amusement, is different from "comfort women". It's very dangerous that such illiterate people edit this highly sensitive article read by hundreds of thousands of people. Some Japanese suggested that there should be added a warning: "This Article May Be Wrong and Hazardous to Your Mental Health." Ikedanobuo 04:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Ikeda, three points. One: Please explain fully your rationale behind your objection to the picture. I am willing to listen and happy to try to come to a compromise if you can give an explanation and back it up with sources if necessary. Two: Please elaborate on what you mean by the difference between the photograph in question and comfort women, and back up your elaboration with a source, again if necessary. This might sound like a challenge but I am only asking you to elaborate. I am interested in your reasoning and my ears are open. Three: if you really do hold a crucial piece of undisclosed information which proves that the photo has nothing to do with comfort women why have you not said so us earlier? Eagerly awaiting your reply to all three. Phonemonkey 08:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Probably Mr. Ikeda says that the "comfort battalions" on the caption was not embedded brothels (慰安所, Ianjo), but battalions of hired entertainment performers (慰問部隊, Imon-Butai), similar to performers hired by United Service Organizations or Armed Forces Entertainment in the U.S. In WW II, many Japanese musicians and entertainers were hired for that purpose.I just explains what Mr. Ikeda says. I don't know which is the better understanding of the photo, and even I don't know if Japan Imperial Army hired Chinese or Korean performers. --NobuoSakiyama 17:24, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation, that is *much* more helpful.

The caption "comfort battalion" is used in the source of the photo at Britain's Imperial War Museum [50]. I would have thought that if she was a performer the IWM would have captioned her as a "performer" or an "entertainer" but I accept that ambiguities remain. If the dear professor wants the photo removed on this basis then I accept that. I wish the dear professor had the ability to explain his reasoning like Mr Sakiyama, instead of merely ranting and raving about illiterate editors which is not constructive. Phonemonkey 18:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Time attack by Mr. Ikeda
Please explain your ridiculous contradictory quote "RAA(1945-1946) in Korean war(1950-1953)" Mr. Ikeda said "In addition to the RAA in Korean war, American Army set up sites for prostitution and committed "state rape" in the Vietnam War." When I checked Wikepedia for Recreation and Amusement Association, "The Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA, 特殊慰安施設協会, the official euphemism for the prostitution centers arranged for occupying U.S. armed forces by the Japanese Government after World War II was created on August 28, 1945 by the Japanese Home Ministry ... In January 1946, the RAA was terminated by an order to cease all "public" prostitution. The ban is traditionally attributed to the efforts of former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt but was almost certainly propelled by rapidly spreading venereal disease among the troops."

However, Korean war was between 1950 - 1953. How can you link RAA established by Japanese Home Ministry (1945- 1946) and Korean war (1950-1953)?? He should have said RAA established by Japanese Home Ministry instead of saying RAA(1945-1946) in Korean war(1950-1953). That's why I assumed that Mr. Ikeda was trying to hide Japanese government's role in establishing RAA after WWII.

Mr. Ikeda, Wikepedia has come this far thanks to donations from many completely anonymous users not familiar with meticulous guidelines. Show some respect for them. If you don't like Wikipedia way, you can build your own site with stricter rules. 220.76.64.71 14:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't rely on Western media

The estimate of the number is wrong:

Estimates vary from 50,000 to 300,000, but most sources indicate about 200,000 young women were recruited to serve in Japanese military brothels.

The source is BBC, which quotes no source. I wrote:

Estimates of the number of women varies greatly, but it is generally recognized that most of them were from Japan and Korea. Yoshiaki Yoshimi estimates that there were about 2,000 centers where as many as 200,000 Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Taiwanese, Burmese, Indonesian, Dutch and Australian women were interned. Ikuhiko Hata estimates the number of women working in the licensed pleasure quarter was fewer than 20,000. They were 40% Japanese, 20% Koreans, 10% Chinese, with others making up the remaining 30%. 200,000 might be an overestimation because the total number of government-regulated prostitutes was 170,000 in Japan during the WW2.

Its source is a historian's research. Why did you replace it with such secondary and unreliable sources? If you can't refute my claim, unlock the protection and let me write. Ikedanobuo 05:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The BBC is a reliable source. --ElKevbo 06:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, the sources are CNN and Boston Globe. But they don't report the number of 300,000. Who says that? Ikedanobuo 07:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, CNN and the Boston Globe are reliable sources. Please read the policy. --ElKevbo 07:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I asked the source of the estimate of 300,000. Can you read English? Ikedanobuo 07:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Hell if I know where they got that number. *I* didn't write it. If the sources we cite all say 200,000 then that's what should be in the article. --ElKevbo 07:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

And thirty seconds of actually looking at the article and its references shows that the BBC claims that "An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 women across Asia, predominantly Korean and Chinese, are believed to have been forced to work as sex slaves in Japanese military brothels." The BBC is a reliable source so it should definitely be included in the article (as it is currently). --ElKevbo 08:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

ElKevbo, wording and attitudes that Ikedanobuo has been making have not been very much sophisticated, but I suppose what he is trying to attract attentions to here is that CNN, BBC and what he calls western media may have most likely been based on the sources he claims to have been exploded, like Yoshida and Senda. Wikipedia needs to represent the 'consensus' that the majority of media in the English speaking world appears to have, no doubt about that, but if such an important sources like Yoshida's confession was denied by the author himself, for example, it seems to me that it is fair to mention such a fact in the main text. For other points like the number and composition of Ianfu, he needs to fortify his arguments with more sources if he wish to exclude other opinions, but what he is referring to, the Hata books, are not studies that can be dismissed so easily. If it is the case, it seems to me that such discussions merit inclusion to Wikipedia considering the nature of the issue like this. 208.72.137.139 08:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. BBC, CNN, and other Western media rely on the old sources that were disproved by the new research by Hata and other historians. Now there is no controversy among historians about the fact that no evidence of abduction was found. The controversy is concerning the interpretation (narrow and broad sense). I propose you to quote only the reliable sources by historians such as Yoshimi and Hata. In fact they agree basically. Ikedanobuo 08:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that all available evidence, including retracted or disproven evidence, needs to be included. My primary objection and the reason I intervened in this article was the large-scale deletion of well-sourced information. I don't recall who was deleting that information but it's not very important as I would object no matter who was deleting it. But I don't object to including additional or new information, even if that modifies or refutes information already included. That's exactly what we *should* be doing instead of deleting information. --ElKevbo 08:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't have strong opinions about what's discussed in this entry although I'm very much interested in this and have been watching what's been happening to the page in the last few days. ElKevbo, it seems to me that the user Ikedanobuo has been trying primarily to add new info mostly backed by decent sources, if not with first-class reliabilities. It seems to me who has been repeatedly reverting the page and deleting new info without reasonably organized discussions were those who have different opinions than him. Ikeda-san, your edits to the main text seems to be mostly reasonable to me, at least me personally. I understand English is not your native tongue, and expressing what you feel strongly about in a second language sometimes has to result in what's seen by native speakers as offense or incivility if you really need to try to get across. But your language and attitudes in this discussion page so far has been having some negative impacts on your objective -- including new info you want to bring into the page. Japanese is a polite language in its nature, you should be able to reach at that level in English if you take a few seconds rereading your words before pushing the save page button. 208.72.137.139 09:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't delete if you can't refute it

I wrote a section "Documents proving the coerction"

In 1991, Asahi Shimbun published Yoshida's "confession" and claimed that former comfort women had been abducted by the Army, which pressured Miyazawa and Kono to apologize. But when Yoshida admitted his confession was a "novel" in 1996, there were no other evidences that prove the abduction. Asahi stopped reporting about Yoshida without apology.

Former Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Nobuo Ishihara, who collected the documents for the apology, admitted that there was no official document of Army that ordered to kidnap women but that Kiichi Miyazawa, then Prime Minister, decided to apologize as a political compromise with Korean government.[51]

Today no historians and media in Japan say that there is a document that proves kidnapping of Ianfu by the Army. So Japanese government changed the definition of coercion so that there was no coercion in the narrow sense, that is, abduction by the Army but that there were evidences that prove coercion in the broad sense, that is, wrongdoings by commercial agents who contracted with the Army.[52]

But it was deleted. Why? Is it an "inconvenient truth" for the Japan bashers? Ikedanobuo 05:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Drop the incivility - it's neither welcome nor productive. Just because someone disagrees with you does not make them a "Japan basher."

I deleted that text at least once when the only source was the blog referenced in the middle paragraph - the second reference was not present at one point. The first paragraph is completely unsourced and the claims in that paragraph must be sourced. I would also ask if the reference provided for the third paragraph (a) supports the claim that no historians and media in Japan say... as that is a logical statement that is practically impossible to prove and (b) emphasizes the same phrases. If the source does not provide the same emphasis, then at a minimum the added emphasis must be noted as not present in the original source. If the same words are emphasized, then it's likely that they phrases need to be enclosed in quotes. --ElKevbo 06:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You don't know the procedure of litigation? If you accuse somebody, it's you that should prove that he is guilty. I say no historian has the evidence. It's easy to prove this if you read the left-wing historian's book, e.g., Yoshimi's. Even he doesn't insist there is the evidence of abduction. If you claim that some historian has the evidence, you should prove it. If you can, it would be a great news story, because nobody has seen such thing. Ikedanobuo 07:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Huh? This isn't litigation. You can't prove that no historian has the evidence. It's a practical impossibility. Have you surveyed every historian? Has anyone? hence the impossibility of proving the statement. Again, if you can cite a reliable source that explicitly says that, then it's clearly something that can be included in the article. But you can't include anything that you have said or would like to say as that is original research which is not allowed here. --ElKevbo 07:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't say nonsense without reading my article. I quoted Hata's book that clearly states there is no evidence and no historian disputes it. Ikedanobuo 07:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For the second time, cease your incivility and personal attacks. If you continue along this path the article will likely remain locked and this edit dispute will not be resolved.

I specifically asked if you were quoting the article. I don't read Japanese. If the answer to my question is "yes," then just say so without the negative attitude. And let's be clear that the fact that one author states that "there is no evidence" does not entitle anyone to remove anything from the article; it only entitles one to state that "so-and-so states that there is no evidence of..." --ElKevbo 07:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

So far your argument has no substance. It's easy to prove that there is something, as you said. You only have to show one example. Do it, please. Ikedanobuo 08:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

What argument? Prove what? This is not an adversarial contest. What are you driving at and why are you so hostile? --ElKevbo 08:12, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't let me repeat: I said "Don't delete if you can't refute it". You deleted it but refuted nothing so far. Prove I am wrong. Ikedanobuo 08:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

We're not going to make any progress as long you insist that this is some sort of contest where we have to prove one another wrong...

Your original edit was three paragraphs with one citation from a blog. I deleted those paragraphs because they were poorly sourced. You apparently found another source and added the material. And that's where we're at now. I don't care to delete well-sourced material and unless I made a mistake I haven't done so. --ElKevbo 08:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The quote from a blog is on the official site of the Sankei Shimbun, a national daily. The author, Abiru, is a famous reporter of the Sankei. Such trivial thing can't be the reason to delete the whole part. Ikedanobuo 08:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but I want to say some to ElKevbo. I think what was written by Ikedanobuo isn't well sourced for English readers. Although the Japanese sources are poor source, you can read it by translater or you can read it with someone's translations like above. So it isn't that the article has "no" source. I wonder why you didn't take more moderate instrument like putting tag , but delete the article. The fact makes me suspect your neutrality of this fact. This problem was occured in Japanese linguistic area, so some time lag is unavoidableness for translations. For this reason, we should take customary used instrument like putting tag and should wait them.Tropicaljet 09:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

This is typical for ElKevbo and other anti-Japanese users. They deleted a whole section because of one citation. In fact they don't like the inconvenient truth. For example, when I wrote Kaneko was an unreliable witness, they deleted my notice. Why? Show the sources why you think Kaneko is reliable. Ikedanobuo 00:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

And now we've completed our downward spiral into labeling other editors with derogatory terms. I wonder why this article is locked and editors can't seem to agree or get along? Could it perhaps be that personal attacks are unproductive?

You can disagree with my interpretation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines but to label me "anti-Japanese" is unethical, wrong, and contrary to our community guidelines. I don't know why you insist on attacking me as I'm one of the only non-Japanese editors here that is actually engaging you in dialog and seeking to reach a consensus.

I'd like a personal apology for your libel. --ElKevbo 01:56, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Laughable. ElKevbo deleted my edit without any factual ground. And when other user and I asked him to explain why, he couldn't answer, so he switched the focus to "libel". Libel for anonymous ID? Who is libeled on earth? If you want apology, apologize first for your libel against Japanese people and government. Ikedanobuo 02:25, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

You're not only labeling good-faith editors as racists you're also ignoring reality and information posted on this very page a few lines up. This conversation is unproductive and until you apologize for labeling me a racist I'm done. Your behavior is unacceptable and your insistence on insulting me is shameful and foul. And that's really a shame because your offers to compromise are actually pretty good but you continue to cloud the issue with your bizarre insistence that editors who disagree with your edits and insist on enforcing Wikipedia policy are "anti-Japanese."

If we have not reached a compromise of some sort (and here's a hint: labeling editors with whom you disagree racists is not a successful negotiation strategy), I'll go ahead and request that the article remain protected. I don't know if it'll be granted but it'll at least head off the inevitable edit war. I won't tolerate your continued deletion of well-sourced material. You're welcome to add material as long as it's well-sourced. --ElKevbo 02:34, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If you ElKevbo wanted to make compromise between each side, you should not delete the article, but you should take more moderate instrument like putting tag . If you thought so or didn't think so, you looked like a participator of revert war of one side. Although the sources are poor yet for English readers, there are sources patently in Japanese as you know, we should take customary used instrument like putting tag and should wait them for a while. I think it is commonness in WP and it doesn't go against Wikipedia:Attribution. Tropicaljet 03:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

(unindenting)"Any unsourced material may be removed." --ElKevbo 03:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Mr Ikedanobu has double standards. He erased or revised phrases written by others without any comment in many occasions. (check history section and check what he has done.) Now, he assists that we should keep the rules that he himself ignores. In short, he is saying "Don't touch Ikeda's. Otherwise you will be attacked. However, I can erase or revise anything I like without any explanation." 220.76.64.71 14:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

There are patently Japanese sources. So it is NO unsourced material. And there isn't any code that the sources must be written in English in an official manner. Tropicaljet 03:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I assure that there is and was material in this article that is unsourced. It doesn't matter if somewhere out there exist sources that support the information if those sources are not cited.

(By the way, "English-language sources should be used whenever possible, because this is the English Wikipedia. Sources in other languages are acceptable if no English equivalents have been found.") --ElKevbo 03:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your cite. I didn't remember this sentence "Sources in other languages are acceptable if no English equivalents have been found." It comes easy to scout out for sources. And I read the source this [53]. This is Mainichi Shimbun's official news page, so patently it isn't no source. I can't understand why you think that it is unsourced. Tropicaljet 03:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there would be a way out of the stalemate. You can quote NYT and BBC if you want, but quote the article by Hata and Yoshimi, too. If these two historians agree, there would be no dispute. For example, they agree that there was no evidence of abduction. But they dispute the meaning of "coercion in the broad sense" which was proposed by Yoshimi. Hata says such concept is confusing, but Yoshimi insists that Japanese government is responsible as the emplyer of the agents who recruited the Ianfu. You should separate what is disputed and what is not. Ikedanobuo 09:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If there are facts that are not in dispute and others that are, it would indeed make sense to note them appropriately. --ElKevbo 03:13, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If you agree with the policy, discussion would not be so difficult. As stated by Japanese government yesterday, it denies the military coercion but admits wrongdoing by soldiers and contractors. In fact, there is no dispute about this among historians. It is reasonable to include the testimony by Yoshida and Kaneko (he actually didn't say he had abducted women), but you should note the historian's reservation.

What is disputed are the degree of coercion and the Army's responsibility. The most important evidence of coercion is the Army's order to supervise "Army's brothel", which was discovered by Yoshimi.[54] Yoshimi interprets it as the evidence of coercion by the Army, but Hata interprets it as the warning to commercial agents. In this case, you should include both interpretations. Ikedanobuo 03:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

By the way: Ikedanobuo, I can't seem to find the exact material you are saying I removed at the top of this section in the article's history. Specifically, I can't seem to find a version that has the second cited reference, only the first. Am I just missing it? --ElKevbo 03:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Invitation to the symposium with Jimmy Wales

Next Friday, 3/23, the Information and Communication Policy Forum, of which I am the director, will have a symposium "The future of user-generated media" in Tokyo.[55] Jimmy Wales will deliver the keynote address. Please come to the symposium and discuss the Wikipedia's policy. Ikedanobuo 23:52, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Without meaning to sound so hostile, please explain the relevance of the above post to the Comfort Woman article. Thank you. Phonemonkey 17:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think he is frustrated with the way Wikipedia works, especially after he experienced a flush of reverts on his contributions (allegedlly done from multiple anonymous IP addresses, a long known loophole for vandalism) and accusation of 'meatpuppetry' by Mr. Mackan (to what Mr. Ikeda believes to be a mere act of 'self-defence' against run-away vandalism). He also assumes that this frustration is shared among audicence, and Jimmy Wales is the logical person to turn to if you want the answer for all of this. He happens to be one of the committe members who invited Jim to a symposium in Japan, Hence the above invitation. ... This is what I read off of Mr. Ikeda's blog written in Japanese. Correct me if I am wrong. Strongaxe 09:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It is meatpuppetry, though. It's not really up for interpretation, if you read the guidelines. Mackan 20:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Japanese government states there is no evidence of military coercion

Yesterday Japanese Cabinet endorsed a written statement that there was no evidence that the Japanese military had forcibly recruited women into sex slavery during World War II.[56] NYT's Onishi backed off and only quotes the ambassador's claim that there was testimony by "credible witness", which is wrong, as usual for Onishi. The witness from Korea and Taiwan didn't testify they were kidnapped. Dutch witness claimed she had been raped, but it was not related to the Army's order, as Dutch court decided.

Now that Japanese government denies the coercion by the Army, at least you should include the statement in this article. If you don't, Wikipedia might be sued for libel against Japanese government. Ikedanobuo 02:47, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree - it sounds like material that should be included. --ElKevbo 03:12, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I too agree that it should be included. Ikeda's absurd comments about a libel suit, however, verges on comical. Phonemonkey 09:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

It is a supplementation. Detailed misunderstandings are caused in the article on New York Times because the term is improper.
2007-3-16 and Japanese Government decided the Cabinet Council. It denies the compulsion taking ,that is, "強制連行". According to it, there is no material that shows that the instruction of the army and the government's the comfort woman must having been abducted and gathering the comfort woman compulsorily .
However, "河野談話" ,that is, the kono conversation on 1993-8-4 has been succeeded to, and the change is not thought. In the conversation, there were a lot of cases where the trader cheated the woman, Japanese Government and the army were related to comfort women's environment, and the cases where man of the government had done some relations to compulsion existed occasionally. In the conversation, the apology and reflection are done to comfort womans who did an unhappy experience. Original of 河野談話 ,that is, the kono conversation on 1993-8-4 [57]Elementy 07:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Postscript. The above-mentioned sentence is a range where the fact is recognized in the conversation, and the responsibility and the apology are the expressions that cover any more. Elementy 00:30, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It would show that Japanese government never learned a lesson from WWII. They didn't learn anything from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." Kōichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisers, stated: "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." ( this is writtn by User:220.76.64.167, added by Tropicaljet 14:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC))

I learnd from histories of Japan, Kwantung Army, Asahi Shinbun, North Korea, China, Communist Party of China, and I think that conspiracy and unfounded and one-sided views will bring states to ruin like North Korea. Thanks.Tropicaljet 14:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not understand what you say. You are Swiss it or Vatican people you or will not be Thais. It corresponds by "A certain kind of Japanese" about a strange comment of taking out the atomic bomb. Elementy 15:28, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Mr. Ikedanobuo, you have referred to a decision of a Dutch court. Could you give more specific information on the date and place of this decision? Being in Holland I might be able to find the exact source and provide translation if necessary.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → overleg 20:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Stuart, do you read Japanse? If so, I recommend to check one of AWF report [[58]] titled 'Comfort Women in Occupied Indonesia'. The list of Dutch official document is shown at p134-140. This report is also usefull for those who wants more precise view of Indonesia case, including Batavia case. lssrt 15:00 21 March 2007 (UTC)

• Lssrt, No I don't read any Japanese. But from the few parts in Dutch I think I know where to find the full original texts. I probable will not find an existing translation in English, so it may take a while for me to present the results.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → overleg 21:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

• When official declarations of the Japanese Government are added, I suggest also adding this relevant declaration. It would be wrong to suggest there is only a single Japanese view, opposed to the views of everyone else.

♥ Stuart LaJoie → overleg 20:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

A certain kind of Japanese

One of the reasons that the Japanese repulses is in the education to Japanese children.　 It is not allowed to discuss too much in the education of Japan unlike the United States. It is one reason to frighten selfish mislead by the teacher. In the textbook of Japan, the responsibility of another country is not so described. The textbook is supposed to be two or more, be possible what the government approved, and to consider the neighboring country in the standard of the government. In the edit of the textbook of Korea and China, there is no freedom at all, and is not a standard of consideration to the neighboring country either. The Japanese cannot describe it as if only Japan was a specially bad country and bad people ,without ascertained facts. However, the comfort woman is recorded in the textbook of Japan. South Korea had demanded before to describe that the comfort woman had been compulsorily taken in the textbook. One o'clock had appeared in a school textbook like that, and repulsion was caused. It leads to the history review controversy. The protest of the Japanese is that they want to preserve the health of the mind of children in Japan based on the fact. It is an instinct of group to the living, and it might be near the love for humen. Elementy 14:51, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Please write the article based on the source. For instance, there is only one kind of textbook of South Korea. There are several kinds of textbooks of Japan. As a result, the South Korean has only one sense of values. The Japanese has various sense of values. All South Koreans believe 200,000 prostitutes. The Japanese has the person who believes 200,000 prostitutes and the person who doesn't believe. --ShinjukuXYZ 14:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The previous state is described according to the Sankei Shimbun and the magazine from the '90 age to the beginning about 00's . I do not know the textbook of Japan as of 2007. The description is their subjectivities. Because their recognition is not precise, they do not understand doing too much so much. However, the sense of crisis of the starting point is correct.

This[59] is a Japanese site of the presider of the People's Daily of the People's Republic of China. This source is being written Asahi Shimbun. It is understood that the South Korea government is making the textbook for myself.

Moreover, this[60] is a Japanese version of the newspaper and "朝鮮日報"Chosun Ilbo of South Korea. It is being written, the textbook of South Korea is "国定教科書"national textbook now. "国定" is to mean the government enacts it. Elementy 00:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Then, why Japanese are so eager to exaggerate the damage done by atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? You should erase atomic bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from textbooks to protect your children from horrible history in which many people just evaporated in a second if you apply the same standard in comfort women issue. I was surprised that many Japanese I met didnot know the other side of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were only told Japanese side of view that Americans were really mean when they were bombing Japan ignoring the fact Japanese Army's atrocity caused millions of civilian deaths only in Phillippines. I think lessons learnt in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are now forgotten by many Japanese people.220.76.64.71 15:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The peace faction, led by Togo, seized on the bombing as decisive justification of surrender. Kōichi Kido, one of Emperor Hirohito's closest advisers, stated: "We of the peace party were assisted by the atomic bomb in our endeavor to end the war." Hisatsune Sakomizu, the chief Cabinet secretary in 1945, called the bombing "a golden opportunity given by heaven for Japan to end the war." The pro-peace civilian leadership was then able to use the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to convince the military that no amount of courage, skill, and fearless combat could help Japan against the power of atomic weapons. The cabinet made a unanimous decision to surrender and accept the terms of the Potsdam agreement. quoted from Wiki 220.76.64.71 15:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I thought over, and write. I will have written that teachers are having children discuss it in the United States. Isn't there misunderstanding?　 It will keep being not discussed to write as follows. Because it is not a member though I understand a certain kind of Japanese to some degree.

Yes, most Japanese don't try to learn the war. The Japanese was calling the defeat an end of the war for a long time. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are told sadly rather than hatred. It is talked about as a prayer to peace. Of course, the individual who hates it exists.

By the way, is the American teaching children the history that the victim by the Can shooting of the United States is an order near the victim by a Japanese army in the Philippines? Have they counted the number of started wars without a prior declaration of war? It has been read that the participation of the Soviet Union was more effective than the atomic bomb so that Japan may end the war with historian's book. However, I think that I should have stopped fighting only by the atomic bomb. Japanese Government doesn't have the qualification that blames the United States.

However, the atomic bombing is not vindicable. Because the bombing aimed at the stern private residence ground twice. I hear that the schedule exceeded ten cities. However, i hear that Eisenhower had the opinion that the atomic bomb is unnecessary . For what were such a lot of sacrifices necessary? Americans seem not to have a mind to learn from our use of the atomic bomb. On earth, what is a really correct lesson?Who knows it? I do not think that the American also is teaching children an essential lesson.
Elementy 18:57, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

It answers the comment written in "Japanese government states there is no evidence of military coercion" together.

Your impressions are the prejudices to my intention. There is no part where my having written faces hegemony anywhere. The act of taking it out referring to the atomic bomb shows that there is a big distortion in the person's reading omprehension or the information environment. I hear how of the atomic bomb to teach in the United States.I think that it is cheating for basic essence. However, I do not demand many from children.

You seem not to know many of the comfort woman problem , or to know shape that they are brought together to a neutral target.

In the above-mentioned, as follows, of course, the writings are not demand for the article page of Wikipedia . I understand that you cannot believe soon. When the information environment is gradually arranged, you will also understand. I am writing this composition in the meaning that It is hoped to you to edit it till then without prejudice. It is a prejudice act the writing stirred expression to the article, and the deletion of existence of objection etc.

As for the Kono conversation, a morality responsibility and the responsibility as the organization are admitted. However, those who support the comfort woman have tried to make it to the admission of it that Japan did the compulsion taking as the policy. Especially, to the first stage.

The first those who testified, Kim Hacsn in a former comfort woman came to Japan in 1991. She had received the reward with the ticket of the army. The value of the ticket disappeared because the army was lost. She came for the lawsuit. She should not have had the expectation of winning the case. The responsibility has moved to South Korea by the Japan-South Korea agreement. The South Korea government did not talk about it. Asahi Shimbun reported her as a victim of the compulsion taking. However, the report contradicted the testimonys that she had done in some places. 　

The female caster in Japan said that the evidence of the compulsion taking had not been found and that it is necessary to open it to the public if existing. Then,A lot of Japanese protested against the remark that evidence was a undiscovery. Her lecture was discontinued, and she resigned the caster.

People who stick to the compulsion taking will protect former comfort women and also are protecting Asahi Shimbun. However, when a detailed investigation is done, the responsibility on the Korean people side is found, too. In the government in Korea at that time, it is Korean people that acted actually. The people who support them want to have everything decided as a responsibility of Japan. The left wants to advertise this problem to the Japanese as a crime of the South Korea rule of Japan. Therefore, the compulsion taking was talked about as a difference point of Japanese comfort women and Korean comfort women.

The comfort woman's compulsion taking was the re-center of the problem between the left and the right wing and between Japan and South Korea at the '90 age. The compulsion taking mutually leads to the disregard of the Japanese comfort woman's existence. The description where a lot of Japanese comfort women existed was put out without consideration while there were a lot of one-sided and stirred descriptions. This problem will keep being misinterpreted as long as there is such acts.

It is wider, and of course, the problem is by chaotic of the truth and the lie and has a right and left confrontation. Elementy 17:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)