Whilst South Korean government energetically blames Japan for "comfort women" thing recently, what really is "comfort women"? I guess that many people think it's an appellation for sex slaves abducted by Japanese military from Korea during World War II. Do you think so too? First of all, I insist it's a totally wrong image!
Is a comfort women story a fiction? No, I don't think so. Of course, they actually existed. However, the problem is that they were not like what South Korean government says!
The most significant truth what I want you to know is vast majority of comfort women were Japanese. There were Korean women as well, but they were not majority.
Additionally speaking, Korea as a nation, both South and North, didn't exist at that time. It was a part of Japan. As a consequence, Japanese military force employed lots of Korean men as soldiers. Of course, they were eligible to get service from comfort women. South Korean government should blame not only Japan, but also Korea itself.
During World War II, it was an era of patriotism in Japan. Soldiers fought for the nation and people spared no aid for them. Comfort women are self-sacrificed women to aid soldiers to encourage them. Why they did such thing? Because they thought it benefit the nation.
You know, comfort women's job was totally a risky mission because they had to do their job near battlefields where soldiers were fighting. Of course, their activities are far limited there compared to safe places. Due to such reasons, comfort women were well rewarded, or paid in other words.
Due to the fact that comfort women were well paid, it is true too that lots of women contracted for money, not for patriotism. Lots of those women unwillingly became comfort women who suffered with poverty or debt.
I really recommend you to read this US Army's report If you haven't: Report No. 49: Japanese Prisoners of War Interrogation on Prostitution
In Wikipedia entry, comfort women are explained like below:
Comfort women are girls and women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II
If you have read the report above, you must find this statement isn't accurate. Comfort women were not those women who were captured by Japanese military and forced to do so. They became comfort women with contracts with their intent, regardless of whether they were happy to do or not. The job was well paid. Do you regard such well paid people as slaves? I believe you don't unless you protest against sex for money itself.
Popular but wrong criticism against comfort women is they were abducted by Japanese military, as I stated at the beginning of this entry. The military didn't directly recruit comfort women, but agents did on behalf. Since they were not government people, they didn't have rights to forcibly hold people unlike governmental organization. So, "Japanese military abducted young women for sexual slavery" is a totally wrong image.