In this newsletter Amnesty International calls on the Japanese government to accept full responsibility for crimes committed against women condemned to sexual slavery by their Japanese captors – so-called “comfort women” – before and during the Second World War. Up to 200,000 women were sexually enslaved by the Japanese military, in what was known as “comfort stations”. Women were enslaved against their will and repeatedly raped, tortured and brutalized for months and years. Victims were Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Filipina, Malaysian, Dutch, East Timorese and Japanese. Most women were under the age of 20 and some girls were as young as 12.
