Japan’s expansionist machine in World War II depended on one of the largest systems of human exploitation in history. At least 400,000 women were abducted and forced into sexual servitude under the “comfort women” system. More than 200,000 came from the Chinese mainland, while tens of thousands hailed from the Republic of Korea, the Philippines and other Asian regions. Survivors recount brutal beatings, sexual violence and lifelong trauma.
Millions more – including Asians and Allied POWs – endured forced labor under brutal military oversight. The Bataan Death March in the Philippines saw over 10,000 prisoners die from starvation and abuse. On the Burma-Siam “Death Railway,” 62,000 Allied POWs and nearly 200,000 local laborers were driven to exhaustion, disease and death as they laid tracks through jungle terrain.
Experts emphasize that these atrocities were not random acts of violence but part of an organized wartime policy. Historian Dr. Marisol Tan explains, “This was state-backed exploitation on an industrial scale, designed to support Japan’s military goals at the cost of human lives.”
Decades later, survivors, activists and scholars are calling for full recognition, official apologies and reparations. New memorial museums and educational initiatives are emerging across Asia to shed light on these untold stories. For a generation of young global citizens, understanding this history is essential to demanding accountability and ensuring such horrors never recur.
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Wartime enslavement: 'Comfort women' system, forced labor across Asia
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