"At Least 39 Sites," Including Teen Girls... "Comfort Stations" Found Even at Coal Mines

[Anchor]

The fact that there were comfort women not only in military units but also at industrial sites such as coal mines during the Japanese colonial period has largely gone unnoticed. A Japanese media outlet reported today (the 12th) that at least 39 industrial comfort stations existed in Japan at the time. Critics are pointing out that an active response from the government is necessary.

Correspondent Mun Junmo reports from Tokyo.

[Reporter]

At least 700,000 Koreans were forcibly mobilized to Japanese munitions industry sites during the Japanese colonial period.

The Mainichi Shimbun reported on its front page that there were at least 39 "industrial comfort stations" in Japan at the time to manage these male workers.

The Japanese government recommended the use of industrial comfort stations to related companies as part of so-called "labor measures" to prevent Korean workers from fleeing. They were mostly disguised as rest areas for Korean workers or operated under the signboards of restaurants or bars.

The newspaper reported that some of the women working there were teenage girls.

A paper published in 1945 described the industrial comfort stations as "simply put, sexual solution centers," noting that "about 10 Korean women should be stationed per 1,000 Korean workers to prevent escape and boost the motivation for increased production."

The 39 confirmed sites were located around munitions industry facilities, including the Mitsubishi Hashima coal mine—known as "Battleship Island"—as well as coal mines in Hokkaido and Fukuoka Prefecture. It has been raised that more may have existed in other places such as the Sado Mines.

This issue began to come to light through investigations of coal-mining regions in the 1990s, but it has received less attention compared to the military comfort women issue.

During today's parliamentary audit of the South Korean Embassy in Japan, lawmakers criticized the passive attitude of the South Korean government.

[Cha Ji-ho / Member, National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee (Democratic Party of Korea): You only belatedly grasped this issue through the reports on today's newspaper pages, and did not even mention it during today's audit. Will you officially propose launching an investigation to headquarters (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and related ministries?]

[Lee Hyuk / Ambassador to Japan: Yes, I will.]

The Embassy in Japan stated that it would review measures to link the industrial comfort women issue with follow-up actions for the registration of the Sado Mines as a UNESCO World Heritage site to elicit additional measures from Japan, and report its findings by the comprehensive parliamentary audit at the end of this month.

(Video reporting: Mun Hyun-jin | Video editing: Kim Yoon-sung | Design: Byun Da-young, Park Tae-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.