Chinese Comfort Women: Testimonials from Imperial Japan's Sex Slaves
PeiPei Qiu, with Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei
Oxford University Press, 2014
Over the past two decades, questions of responsibility and restitution for Imperial Japan’s system of wartime “comfort women” have sparked international debate. Yet for the largest theater of the Asia-Pacific War—Mainland China—firsthand survivor accounts available in English have been strikingly limited. Chinese Comfort Women seeks to address this gap by presenting the personal testimonies of women abducted and forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese military. Their stories shed light not only on their wartime experiences but also on the cultural, social, and political conditions that extended their hardship long after the fighting ended.
Through the voices of twelve survivors of Chinese “comfort stations,” the book reveals the extreme violence and degradation inflicted upon women and demonstrates how the establishment of these stations tracked with Japan’s expanding military front. Supplementing these narratives with local histories, witness testimony, and investigative findings, the volume situates individual experiences within the broader structures of war and occupation, giving human depth to China’s wartime suffering.
By foregrounding these overlooked accounts, Chinese Comfort Women makes a vital scholarly contribution to the study of sexual violence, war crimes, and the Asia-Pacific conflict. It offers an indispensable resource for historians, legal scholars, and students of Asian and women’s studies, while also resonating with human rights advocates, oral historians, and readers seeking to better understand the enduring legacies of the Second World War.