Japan's Comfort Women (16 page)

Prior to the war, there were also small numbers of Japanese prostitutes (
karayuki-san
), who were brought in from Singapore or elsewhere by Japanese brothel owners operating in Java.17

So, when the Japanese troops entered the Dutch East Indies in March 1942, there were large numbers of prostitutes – Indonesian, Eurasian, European (mainly Dutch) women – who had lost Dutch clients due to the defeat of the Dutch forces and the subsequent internment of Dutch soldiers and civilians by the Japanese. It is therefore strongly believed that a significant number of these semi-professional and professional prostitutes were used by the newly arrived Japanese troops as comfort women and employed at both military comfort stations and civilian brothels/clubs catering to Japanese government bureaucrats and businessmen. It is also presumed that Japanese brothel owners, who had been operating businesses in Java before the Japanese occupation, were commissioned by the army to procure comfort women and run some of the newly established comfort stations. As has been mentioned, many of these prostitutes, in particular the Dutch women, seem to have become “concubines” of high-ranking officers of the Japanese Army.

Comfort women in the Dutch East Indies
67

Procurement of Dutch women

The Japanese began using coercion and deception to procure Dutch comfort women in mid-1943. This sudden increase of enforced prostitution on the young Dutch internees was undoubtedly related to the fact that, by this time, VD

problems among the soldiers had become a grave concern for the Japanese military leaders in the Dutch East Indies. In order to reduce the high VD rates among their men, senior Japanese military officers sought to procure young, unmarried women free of sexual disease for military prostitution. The use of coercion seems to have coincided with the rapidly worsening living conditions of Dutch civilians under the Japanese military administration.18 There is no doubt that the Japanese took advantage of the harsh living conditions in the internment camps to lure young women into prostitution.

According to Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal records, about 80,000 Dutch civilians in the Dutch East Indies were interned during the war. Of these, 10,500

died by the end of the war. The high death toll (approximately 13 percent) indicates the hardship these civilians experienced for the three and a half years under Japanese military rule.19

The internment of these civilians did not happen immediately upon the Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies. Until September 1942, apart from about 4,500 people who were regarded as “hostile civilians” detained in 19 different
Plate 3.2
A woman and six children inside a house at Kampon Makassar Internment Camp, Batavia, in 1945, showing the cramped, primitive conditions of the camp.

Source
: Australian War Memorial, transparency number 305359

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Comfort women in the Dutch East Indies
Plate 3.3
Exterior view of houses at Kampon Makassar Internment Camp, Batavia, in 1945, where one thousand women and children were interned in an area of less than half a square mile.

Source
: Australian War Memorial, transparency number 305358

internment camps in Java, Allied civilians were free to move around as long as they carried the Alien Resident Registration Identification Card issued by the Japanese military government in Java.

After September 1942, all men between 16 and 60 years old were separated from their families and put into camps. The women, children, and old people were forced to live in designated places. Their freedom was further restricted in 1943 when the war situation turned against Japan and local resistance movements became stronger. By October 1943, 46,784 women, children and elderly people were interned in a number of camps in six different regions of Java. The private assets of these civilians were frozen. They were forced to rely on extremely meagre provisions of food, clothing, and medicine at the internment camps.20

Around this time the Japanese apparently started to exploit the harsh conditions facing the Dutch civilians in order to lure young women into becoming comfort women.

For example, in March 1943, eight women in Chiapit Internment Camp on the outskirts of Bandung were taken out of the camp under the false pretence that they would be provided with meals at a Chinese restaurant and allowed to live outside the camp. However, they were taken to an officers’ club instead, and ordered to work as comfort women. Despite persistent pressure by Japanese officers, six of these eight women refused the demand and two days later they
Comfort women in the Dutch East Indies
69

were released. Two women, however, gave in and became comfort women at this officers’ club. There were similar cases in Cirebon and Jember.21

In September 1943, a Japanese man, Aoji Washio, started operating a military brothel called the Sakura Club near Pasar Baru in Batavia, using Dutch women, as requested by a Japanese Army officer. Aoji was living with a Dutch prostitute who had been a brothel owner in Java prior to the Japanese invasion. This Dutch woman obtained permission to visit Cideng Internment Camp and recruited 11 young women by offering them jobs as “barmaids” to serve Japanese customers. However, once these women were brought into the Sakura Club, they were forced to act as prostitutes, being threatened that they would be handed over to the kempeitai ( Japanese military police) if they refused to co-operate. Nine other Dutch women working at this club were brought from other camps in Java. Two of them were from Semarang; one of them was as young as 15 years old.22

In November 1943, the Japanese Ministry of the Army changed its policy of dealing with the civilian internees from the Allied nations. The Ministry shifted responsibility from the local military governments and placed all the internees in the Japanese-occupied territories under the direct control of each regional army commandant.23

The internees of the Dutch East Indies were placed under the control of the 16th Army, and until about April 1944 reorganization of the camps was carried out by transferring some of the internees from one camp to another.24 It seems that, in this process, a number of women were forced to choose between moving to a different camp or working at a comfort station. There were at least two such cases in Bandung. The Japanese also tried to separate about 100 women during a transfer of internees from a camp in Surabaya to Gedagan Camp in Semarang.

However, in the face of fierce opposition from the internees, this plan was abandoned.25

The enforced procurement of comfort women from the internment camps in the Dutch East Indies became more frequent between late 1943 and mid-1944.

This was probably due to the fact that internment camps were now under the direct control of the army, making it easier for the army officers in charge of comfort stations to secure suitable women from the civilian internees.

There was a comfort station called the Magelang Club in Magelang. In December 1943, a group of Japanese, including the Resident (equivalent to “Governor” in the Dutch colonial administration) of Magelang and a kempeitai officer, visited Muntilan Internment Camp in the vicinity. They ordered the camp leaders to call up all female internees between 16 and 25 years old. About 100 young internees were gathered in front of the camp office and they were ordered to walk, one by one, before the Japanese. The Japanese selected about 50 of them and ordered the camp leaders to prepare a list of their names. In fact, the Japanese made sure that the camp leaders actually typed up the names of these internees on a piece of paper. The camp leaders were not given any reasons for such a request, but suspicions quickly grew among the camp leaders and mothers of young girls.

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The camp leaders and an internee doctor, after conferring with their mothers, picked out most of the young girls from the list of about 50 people and put them in the camp hospital on the pretence that they were seriously ill.26

On January 25, 1944, the Japanese, together with about 50 Indonesian policemen, arrived at the camp in a bus and ordered the camp leaders to show them the name list. This time, there was a civilian among the Japanese who was believed to be a comfort station manager. The camp leaders told the Japanese that the name list had been destroyed, but the Japanese searched the camp office and found it. The Japanese scolded the camp leaders and ordered them to call up the 50 or so listed internees for immediate inspection at the church.

The camp leaders had no choice but to obey this order. The Japanese lined up the women in the church and inspected each person by lifting their skirts and checking their legs. The camp leaders and the doctor went inside the church building and complained to the Japanese. Eventually the Japanese selected seven women, who, according to testimonies of some internees, had had prior sexual relationships with some of the Japanese camp administrative staff, and eight other young girls. They were ordered to pack their belongings within half an hour. The Japanese did not explain where they would be taken, but told them that they would be looked after very well. Mothers of those eight young girls panicked and hid the girls in the camp buildings. As these girls did not turn up half an hour later, Indonesian policemen were instructed to go into the
Plate 3.4
A group of women at the Kampon Makassar Internment Camp, Batavia, in 1945. They were unable to leave the appalling conditions as they had no alternative accommodation.

Source
: Australian War Memorial, transparency number 305360

Comfort women in the Dutch East Indies
71

compound and bring out the girls. The police brought out the girls, who were crying frantically, and dragged them to the gate. A crowd of a few hundred internees who were gathering near the gate tried to stop the girls from being taken away. When a scuffle broke out between the police and these internees, Japanese and Indonesian policemen drew swords and drove the internees away.

The Japanese eventually took the seven women and eight girls out of the camp.27

Three days later, however, the Japanese came back to the camp and proposed to the camp leaders a plan to call for “volunteers” to replace some of the girls who had been taken away. It is said that this was an idea originally put forward to the Japanese by one of the internees, who was a former professional prostitute. Soon a few women “volunteered.” As these women were reputed to have been former prostitutes, there was no protest from the internees this time. At the police station, in the presence of the camp leaders, the Japanese carried out a further selection of the girls and women including the “volunteers.” As a result, four internees (one of whom was a 14-year-old girl) were sent back to the camp.

The remaining thirteen women, including four unmarried girls, were taken on January 28, 1944, to Magelang, where they were examined by a Japanese doctor, raped, and forced to work as comfort women. A month later, mothers and relatives of these women and girls received parcels of tinned food and biscuits from the Japanese.28