Kevin Blackburn, "The Comfort Women of Singapore in History and Memory" (National U of Singapore Press, 2022)

New Books in Japanese Studies · Feb 17, 2023 · 41m

"Comfort women" or ianfu is the euphemism used by the Japanese military for the women they compelled to do sex work in the Second World War. The role of comfort women in history remains a topic of importance — and emotion — around the world. It is well-known that an elaborate series of comfort stations, or comfort houses, were organised by the Japanese administration across Singapore during the Occupation from 1942 to 1945.

So why did no local former comfort women come forward and tell their stories when others across Asia began to do publicly in the 1990s? To understand this silence, The…