IV)Questions about Testimonies of Former Comfort Women.
(Typical Case D)
i) The same woman testified differently three times.
I went to a Japanese troop's camp in Northern part of China by my step-father in 1939. He persuaded me I would make a lot of money. I was taken into a comfort station by him, and I was forced to serve Japanese soldiers. (at Tokyo District Court in 1991)
I was brought to China by my step-father because I would make a lot of money in 1941. I was suspected as a spy by the Army's officer at a restaurant in Beijing. I was
taken to a comfort station by the Army, a Japanese soldier deprived of my virginity. (A Korean Organization's Interview in 1993)
I was brought to China by my step-father. I became a spy of Chinese Communist Party's Army because I could speak Chinese. I was arrested for spying and taken to comfort stations by Army. (Her temistory at Japan)
ii) The same woman also testified three times differently.
A well-known Korean man persuaded me that I would work at a restaurant because
I would make money. I found the restaurant was a comfort station. I was deceived by a Korean. I wept all day. (At Tokyo District Court in 1991)
I was taken to a comfort station by a Japanese man with a military uniform.
(At a Korean Organization's Interview in 1993)
I was abducted and forced to become a comfort woman by a Japanese military policeman and a Korean detective. (According to "I Was a Comfort Woman for the Tate Division on the Burmese Front Published in Japan.")
Whether they were abducted by the Army or not would be very important if they demanded to be compensated by the Japanese government. Why did they change their testimonies in two years?
A non-government organization which defends former Korean comfort women
interviewed forty comfort women in order to publish a book in 1993.
Relatives, friends, neighbors, and other people concerned who might have witnessed the abduction did not testify them at all. The researchers who wrote the book noted that they visited and met former comfort women all over Korea. They would have had chances to collect support evidence, but they could not collect any support evidence at all. The researchers might not have intended to collect support evidence at all, or they might have avoided doing so.
(Typical Case E)
I was abducted by a military policeman, and he let me get on a five-storied ship with a lot of women in fall 1944. The ship stopped Okinawa, Saigon, and other places. I was taken from Saigon to Rangoon by land.
During the final stage of the War, foods and medical supplies could not be sent to troops because southern supply routes were cut by the U.S. Navy. A lot of soldiers had been dead because of starvation and malaria. It is doubtful that a five-storied huge ship was moving in order to carry comfort women at that period.
(Typical Case F)
My family rejected giving brass table ware to government and changing their names like Japanese, all of my family members were taken by police in August 1938. I was forced to apply for a comfort woman.
Demand of giving brass table ware to government and changing their names like Japanese were enforced in 1940 in Korea. Her testimony's description was not the right in time. It is doubtful that the governor-Korea's police forced some Korean activists' daughters into comfort women in order to oppress their parents.
(Typical Case G)
"A woman who failed to run away was scooped out her breast, torn her abdomen, and taken out her internal organs by a Japanese soldier. The soldiers threw her internal organs at me. I tried to run away, but I was arrested. My body was turned upside down, put a hot iron, and sticked by a rifle by Japanese soldiers.
Some former comfort women's testimonies are unusually cruel, but those testimonies are quite doubtful. Even though these kinds of comfort women were suffered from such a cruel action by Japanese soldiers, she did not participate in comfort women's lawsuit. If her testimony was true, why she did not participate in lawsuit?
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