Talk:Comfort women/Archive 10

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Relevance of Ramseyer

Added discussion section for the relevance of Ramseyer's view. I realize that he's a university professor, but not sure about the relevance of his view here. First, it's just added in the 'History' section with the opinion that 'comfort women' were not forced, which pushes a claim that effectively denies what most of the article states and which could add false balance. Second, it's published in Japan Forward, a nationalist and far-right (according to some media outlets like Forbes) tabloid newspaper published by Sankei Shimbun (See WP:NPOV's section on Bias in Sources). I would delete it, as I have been trying to do and as it's new content; from what I understand from WP:ONUS, it's up to whoever first added Ramseyer's view here to include it in the article. Just in case someone tries to report edit-warring though, I added a discussion here. NettingFish15019 (talk) 07:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• Do you have that forbes article calling japan forward far right and nationalist? "Tabloid" certainly is not accurate. I dont think Ramseyers claim denies most of the article, some women were certainly coerced that however does not make them sex slaves, i dont think Ramseyers believes no women were coerced at all. He is not the only one who denies that comfort women were sex slaves historian ikuhito hata does as well as a number of korean professors including Lew Seok-choon of Yonsei University, Park Yuha of Sejong University, and Professor Lee Yong-hoon of Seoul University to name just a few. It is not an unpopular position XiAdonis (talk) 08:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• Sankei Shimbun is the fifth major newspaper, and still has 1.3 milion circulation in Japan last year. It is not recognized as a "Tabloid" media. And there is no bias in comparison with official Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Japan) documents on this topic.Yasuo Miyakawa (talk) 11:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Here's the Forbes article ("https://www.forbes.com/sites/adelsteinjake/2017/10/30/japan-may-be-moving-right-politically-but-its-communist-party-still-holds-some-sway-with-voters/?sh=22e23ed07dfc"). On the note about 'tabloid', I'm not referring to Sankei Shimbun, but its publication 'Japan Forward'.

On whether there was coercion, I'd like to make two points. First, I'm aware that there is recent argument by the Japanese government that there was no coercion involved. However, the broader consensus is that, in the vast majority of cases, there was significant coercion and no 'volunteers'. International sources include the United Nations Report in 1996, which details that women were deceived with promise of high-paying jobs and abducted and defined the comfort stations as 'military slavery',, UN special rapporteur Gay J. McDougall, who concluded that the Japanese Army violated the prohibition against slavery, and Amnesty International, as well as official positions of countries like the United States (see United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121), China, South Korea and Malaysia. Academic sources include Gabriel Jonsson of Stockholm University, Hirofumi Hayashi of Kanto Gakuin University, John Lie of UC Berkley, and Shogo Szuzki of the University of Manchester, all of whom support and provide evidence that the vast majority of comfort women were coerced. Ueno Chizuko of Kyoto University particularly cautions against the 'volunteer' theory, for several reasons. First, the fact that "no positive sources exist supporting claims that comfort women were forced labor" must be treated with doubt, as "it is well known that the great majority of potentially damaging official documents were destroyed in anticipation of the Allied occupation". Second, the relative silence of victims caused their later testimony to be denied as historical evidence, despite the fact that "the comfort women system succeeded in keeping the women who had been made comfort women silent" and who later gave evidence with the help of women's support groups (at pg 131).

The fact that the vast majority of comfort women were coerced was also acknowledged by the Japanese government until recently (up until around the 1990s). For example, the Japanese government in 1993 admitted coercion in recruiting comfort women, though denying any compensation in documents such as in Takagi Kenichi's address to the Association for Asian Studies in 1994, and the 1993 Kono Statement, until it was questioned by then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The result is that the broad consensus (excluding the current arguments made by the Japanese Government) is that the broad majority of comfort women were coerced.

Second, regardless of the arguments above, I'm not sure about the relevance of including Ramseyer's viewpoint in the history section, unlike possibly the viewpoint of the Japanese government, which Yasuo Miyakawa asserts. The contribution to the article is minimal with a simple assertion, which appears to make no significant contribution to the article as a whole and goes against the broader consensus presented by the article. To include his view would be to invite false balance and should therefore be deleted. NettingFish15019 (talk) 13:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• General note regards to JAPAN Forward, correction of information: It is not a news-site/publication of Sankei Shimbun, and is operated by JAPAN Forward association, which is a membership organization, although its chief editor came from Sankei Shinbun. It is difficult to scale or categorize its political position at the moment, as it is not published by a corporate publisher. Finlay, it is not a kind of 'tabloid'. Dr.Yasuo Miyakawa (talk) 10:50, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Japan Forward's editor Yasuo Naito claims that they are "well-reasoned conservatism". This is misleading: it is obviously a far-right political opinion publication, as it carries items of interest to far-right readers such as criticism of South Korea, promoting Japan's defense forces, criticism of the United Nations, and North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens, conveying the information with a far-right slant. The board of directors has Sankei Shimbun people on it. Ramseyer admits he cannot read or speak Korean, so it's a miracle that he could be considered an expert on the Korean aspects of the comfort women issue. His scholarly paper is based on Japanese records, and is very limited in scope. Binksternet (talk) 21:17, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Criticism of Ramseyer's findings, on the other hand, is based on 16 (financially motivated) testimonies by former comfort women, who likely had no idea of how the system worked outside their personal experience. In other words, both sides' claims are supported by very limited evidence. In addition, the evidence cited by the critics lacks statistical significance―i.e. there is no indication that the ianfu system had been any more predatory than any other system of prostitution, even by modern standards. See my (numbered) arguments above in the Lead sentence section and below for more thorough arguments. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 06:28, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

References

• The article you linked made no mention of Japan forward and while they did mention the Sankei Shinbun in passing they did not call them far right or nationalist. I understood that you were calling japan forward a tabloid but i disagree with that.

The arguments of the Japanese government is not that there was no coercion involved in any cases at all, this is a misconception. I would caution against using sources from the 90s like the ones from the UN as completely definitive as consensus changes with time, with the unearthing of new evidence, and with the dying off of political and ideological motivations, they should be cross referenced with the most recent scholarship and have their validity properly tested. The United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121 used the debunked and now retracted seiji yoshida memoirs as proof, a group of Japanese academics and historians criticized it heavily in an advertisement ran in the Washington Post. It cannot be taken seriously and im not sure if it counts as a binding and official position of the US government or just a ruling by lawmakers at the time. Amnesty International is ideologically driven and is not an authority on history, they are a human rights focused organization that ironically has been criticized for violating the human rights of its staff "Staff reported multiple accounts of discrimination on the basis of race and gender and which women, staff of colour and LGBTQI employees were targeted or treated unfairly." Multiple governments including the United States has criticized Amnesty for one-sided reporting I understand this has nothing to do with their claims about the comfort women and i am not using these criticism to counter those, i think its fine to include their view in the article if properly attributed but they are not focused on historical research, the work of historians should be preferred.

The first sentence in Gabriel Jonsson's paper you linked is already incorrect "About 80 percent of the estimated 70.000-200.000 comfort women Japan took by coercion from 1932-1945 were Korean", the majority of women were not Korean to state this as an absolute fact puts the entire paper into question. The man further states "Japan has given no official apology to the victims" this is an outright lie.. Numerous apologies have been made, nothing in this paper should be taken seriously imo. I've only read the abstract of Hirofumi Hayashi paper but it seems to be about whether the Japanese military at the time held culpability for the women who were coerced or if it fell to individual brokers and recruiters. He takes the position that the military was responsible, the abstract makes no mention of how many women were coerced and how many were prostitutes, the word "slavery" is also not used at all I dont think the paper affirms what you used it as a source for. I dont have access to any of those papers outside of Gabriel Jonsson's so i cannot comment on them at all in depth, im not qualified to dispute them either and all i can do is point to other historians and academics that have published research saying otherwise. To be clear im not attempting to remove the "sex slavery" wording im fine with the article retaining that even if i disagree with it. To continue to comment on what you've said though, the kono statement states two things i want to point out

"The recruitment of the comfort women was conducted mainly by private recruiters who acted in response to the request of the military." this seems to contradict Hirofumis's paper, you are presenting alot of sources and claiming a historical consensus however there is not even consensus between your sources, admittedly this issue is very complex and i dont believe this level of disagreement can be avoided but that only pokes holes at any claim of true historical consensus.

"In many cases they were recruited against their own will, through coaxing, coercion, etc." again no claim is made on the number of coerced women

This paper published by Ramseyer goes quite in depth and is not a "simple assertion" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0144818820301848, removing his view because it contradicts some of the article is the wrong move, i think ive illustrated why your claim at a historical consensus against Ramseyer is incorrect. I do think the article can be improved by properly stating Ramseyers view and explaining why he came to that conclusion which would fix your criticism that it makes no significant contribution to the article outside of stating his view. XiAdonis (talk) 19:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

References

• Forbes pretty clearly states "The party's newspaper, Akahata (赤旗), has over 1.12 million readers and one weekly magazine predicts they may eclipse Japan's far right newspaper, Sankei Shimbun in the near future". Nippon also says "Sankei Shimbun, which takes pride in its position at the far right of the spectrum"(Nippon), which extends "Japan Forward" because it publishes it.

As for your claims, I'd like to avoid any further general discussion on the topic if possible, especially as Wikipedia talk pages aren't for that. I'll respond briefly to your points though. On your overall comments on the UN, US and Amnesty International, I brought these up to show that the broader consensus, at least in the international community, which has undertaken its own discussions on this subject, is that comfort women were largely coerced. You can't limit the issue to the "work of historians" when this issue has strong political implications.

Specifically, for the UN, I wanted to show that the international community has already undertook its own research and concluded that the vast majority of comfort women were coerced; the lack of any subsequent UN reports and their thorough research makes it so that the 1990s UN reports are still good and reliable. As for the US House Resolution, I can't find anything to support the "retracted memoirs" or "letter". In any case, I only highlighted it to show that the US's official position is that comfort women were largely coerced. You can't say that it can't be taken seriously when House resolutions express the collective sentiment of the House on a particular issue, which in this case is comfort women. I also don't think the House Resolution has been reversed by the US government. It's been endorsed by countries including the European Union, the Netherlands, Canada and the Philippines (see here)), which demonstrates the larger consensus around this issue. As for Amnesty International, I'm not sure what relevance the 'toxic working culture' claim has here. For the US link, your source doesn't seem to critize Amnesty International, but only the claims that the "US is a top offender of human rights". In any case previous Wikipedia notability discussion came to the consensus that it is a largely reliable source (see here and here.

As for the criticisms you make against the sources, I'm not going to go into each of your claims to avoid a general discussion, except to note that I can't find any sources that dispute Jonsson's claim (nor have any been linked here, except for the Japanese government's view). In any case, the claim that "because one thing is wrong, it means everything must be wrong" would be dangerous, and would probably leave this page, if not the majority of Wikipedia, source-less. The historical and broad consensus I'm trying to show is that "the vast majority of comfort women" were forced, which each of these sources state and provide evidence for. This Open Letter by around 150 academics also support this. As the vast majority of academic literature supports this broader consensus, adding Ramseyer's view doesn't help advance this article as a whole. The only sources that I can find which possibly dispute this either come from the Japanese government (whose views are already in the article and are relevant to the article as a whole as they are a stakeholder) or right-to-far-right newspapers/blogs, which by Wikipedia notability guidelines should not be included.

I'll conclude by saying that the Japanese government had acknowledged that the vast majority of comfort women were forced and changed its stance changed post-1990s (here). Most of the dispute that the Japanese government has had is whether the Japanese government itself is responsible for compensation, not whether most comfort women were forced. In any case, I fail to find any sources or statements by other countries which support Japan's position. Ramseyer's view should not be included in this article, as it adds little to it as a whole while going against the broader academic and international consensus.

In any case, we need to reach a consensus on how to deal with the reference to Ramseyer sooner or later. NettingFish15019 (talk) 03:16, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

We must remove the Ramseyer piece from Japan Forward as it is a far-right, politically motivated misrepresentation of the issue. Ramseyer is much more careful to remain fact-based in his scholarly journal article "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War", from the International Review of Law and Economics, scheduled for print publication in March 2021. In the latter piece, Ramseyer restrains himself from claiming that all or most comfort women were voluntary. He discusses the voluntary aspect in depth, describing the economics of the program, but he does not deny the forced sex slavery. Binksternet (talk) 06:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Alright, it took a while but now I have read through all the sources you cited and fact-checked the sources they cited. Having traced all claims to their root, I can confidently assert that there is no "consensus" and that the vast majority of comfort women, probably more than 99%, were voluntary prostitutes.

The New York Times article only mentions the Japanese government acknowledging that "many" women were coerced to work in the brothels. There are no mentions of actual numbers or how the government came to that conclusion (not that they ever could reach that conclusion with any degree of certainty, given that records were disposed of in 1945). Based on the overwhelming weight of evidence, the actual numbers seem to have been extremely low compared to those of voluntary prostitutes. It seems that the Japanese government simply went with the prevailing narrative without performing an internal investigation, given that they present no factual basis for their admission, same as with the US and EU.

The UN rapporteur's 1996 report is based on the 16 testimonies by the same handful victims who have been cited by other sources as well, which is far from sufficient to indicate widespread sexual slavery. The rest of their "evidence" simply proves the existence of military brothels:

Though little documentation remains that bears witness to the recruitment methods, the actual operation of the system is widely attested in records which survive from the period. The Japanese military meticulously recorded the details of a prostitution system that appeared as to be regarded as merely another amenity. The rules for comfort stations in Shanghai, Okinawa, other parts of Japan and China and the Philippines still survive, detailing, inter alia, rules for hygiene, hours of service, contraception, payment of women and prohibitions of alcohol and weapons. These regulations are some of the most incriminating of the documents to have survived the war."

Yes, you read right. The most incriminating piece of evidence proves that the Japanese military established the brothels, took care of hygiene, prohibited weapons and alcohol (probably for the safety of the workers, given that the army had paid them in advance), mandated use of contraception, had predetermined hours of service and payments for the comfort women. I.e. the only solid evidence we have literally suggests, according to the UN 1996 report, that the comfort stations were high class brothels and that comfort women were treated like high class prostitutes. This is exactly in line with Ramseyer's findings.

The UN report also mentions an isolated case of brutality involving 70 victims in Micronesia, but mentions no details whatsoever, making the claim impossible to fact-check and rendering it dubious at best.

The official position of the United States in 2007 has absolutely zero value given that they used that Seiji Yoshida's fictional novel as "evidence" which is solid proof indicating that they literally couldn't be bothered to fact-check their sources and which immediately invalidates all "authority opinions" that effectively copy paste the US 2007 stance.

As for the rest of the academic sources you cite: Jonsson does not give any evidence. Hayashi refers to a statement by JWRC which makes a vague reference to "official documents" without giving a single example (presumably referring to those that prove involvement of military in the establishment and maintenance of the brothels) and then mentions two other cases of purported coercion of women, which may well be fringe cases, given that there were supposedly 50 000 - 400 000 women working in the brothels compared to the <500 reported victims. After some more digging / trying to trace their sources I found this as well as two different accounts of police having rounded up women, once in Borneo and another time in East Timor. So the evidence boils down to three isolated cases of abuse of authority by the special police (or members of the army; some of these accounts have absolutely no details and one was based on an indirect account of other people's testimonies, making it even harder to discern the line between fact and fiction). None of the evidence leads us to conclude that any more than a thousand of comfort women would have been coerced to serve against their own will, which is far from the majority and seems easier to attribute to actions by individual malicious actors rather than all the local middlemen or the military as a whole. Most of the evidence in the publications you cite only serve to corroborate the idea that the system was indeed based on voluntary service, given how difficult it is to find accounts that point to the contrary.

If there is a "wide consensus" then it must be based on solid evidence. Any consensus without proof to back it up is going to crumble as soon as someone points out the lack of evidence. And when we look at the evidence, we find that until now, a wide consensus has only been reached on two points:

* 1. The Imperial Army established the comfort stations to provide soldiers with voluntary prostitutes (quite obvious given that one of their goals was to prevent rape) and was involved in their maintenance, and

* 2. Some (at least 10-40 based on testimonies, maybe up to 1000) women were probably forced to work in them against their own will. This is if we take their word for it; they presumably wouldn't want to lie, despite the obvious financial incentives, the possibility they might want to lie simply to incite hatred to force an apology from Japan for their own isolated cases of misfortune, them probably wanting to double down on their claims given that if they back down they might lose face, and political factors such as nationalists whispering in their ears telling them to be as tough as they possible could.

Everyone presumably agrees that some prostitutes, some 10-40 of them, were screwed by the system and forced to work at the stations. Just as with all prostitution even in the modern world, not all of the workers enter the profession out of their own will. Nothing else has been agreed upon by academics, and you can see this in the way most well-cited historians refer to the events, being careful not to imply anything more than that some comfort women were victims of the system.

Post-2010 much more evidence has been brought to the light of day, such as testimonies and memoirs by non-abused comfort women whose voices had long been censored by the Korean activists, which makes it clear that no pre-2010 narratives can be taken at face value. In fact, the idea that most were coerced seems to have been entirely made up by Seiji Yoshida after which the notion was adopted (uncritically) by activists. Many of the women did testify of abuse (with 16 out of 238 registered survivors claiming that they had been abducted by soldiers) but these testimonies were later contradicted by accounts by other ex-comfort women, whose experiences were much more in line with what you would expect from a system of legal prostitution. Based or Ramseyer's research and e.g. the memoirs of Mun Oku-chu, most comfort women could earn a fortune in their job. That's a far cry from "sexual slavery"; it doesn't even seem remotely like what we would expect from a system of forced prostitution. Those alternative accounts were thoroughly censured and shamed in Korea, and at least one of the comfort women had seemingly blatantly lied about being abducted from home in the middle of the night contrary to her own earlier testimony. In light of all the new evidence, at this point, no one seems to be seriously trying to argue that anything more than a vocal minority had been forced into sexual slavery within the system, and even in these cases it seems highly likely that none of the girls were actually abducted, but were instead sold to the establishments by their parents and middlemen, presumably to pay off a debt or simply to earn money.

And this should go without saying, but note that appealing to authority is a logical fallacy. Actual authoritative sources always detail the source of the information. If one authority says one thing and another authority says another, that's the point where we start scrutinizing the evidence behind the assertions to get to the bottom of things. Almost all of the citations in this case point to the victim testimonies and nothing else. None of the sources you cite address evidence that surfaced in the 2010s by independent investigators much of which directly contradicts earlier consensus (not surprising, considering that that "consensus" was established almost purely based on 16 testimonies).

The open letter you linked only mentions the few testimonies we already know of, as well as the military involvement in establishing and maintaining the brothels. Based on these facts alone, we can conclude that perhaps 20-1000 comfort women were treated as sex slaves, while the rest of the 50 000 - 400 000 worked in the stations out of their own volition. As of now, the Wikipedia article uncritically parrots the claims of a vocal minority amounting to 0.01% - 1% of all comfort women based solely on a couple of anecdotes, second-hand sources and hearsay. The article is clearly not up to Wikipedia's standards in terms of objectivity or neutrality; it is heavily biased in favor of a single outdated narrative, which also happens to be pushed by some 'academics' without evidence, probably out of political reasons or pure ignorance.

If you can find a source that mentions an actual study or records, or even indirect (but convincing) evidence that would facilitate quantifying the number of women who were coerced as opposed to being hired through legal channels, feel free to link it here. It doesn't seem like anything of the sort exists, though, in which case the article needs a thorough overhaul to restore neutrality and accuracy.

Bavio the Benighted (talk) 04:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Wow, what a pile of unsupported nonsense. 99% voluntary? Ridiculous. You have shot yourself in foot here, losing all credibility. Binksternet (talk) 04:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

You seem to have completely forgotten the purpose of Wikipedia. I have zero credibility, and so do you. This is irrelevant, however, since we let the sources do the talking.

So, go ahead. If you find my assertion "ridiculous", feel free to present evidence to the contrary. I read all the sources; did you? Or are you just parroting them without bothering to read through them? Bavio the Benighted (talk) 07:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

No, I don't need to "present evidence to the contrary" after you completely misrepresented the most widely accepted accounts, starting with the UN's thorough research. The UN stance is that the comfort women program "should be considered a clear case of sexual slavery and a slavery-like practice".[1] They describe how women were deceived starting in 1937, told they were signing up for factory jobs and similar, but dragged off to sex slavery, including girls 14 to 17 years old. They were kept guarded, prevented from leaving, forced to work as sex slaves. The UN reports "approximately 200,000" women were forcibly recruited, which makes any number of voluntary prostitutes pale in comparison. Because of this high level source in direct contradiction to your viewpoint, I don't think I need to spend time convincing you. Regarding the Ramseyer writings, I still think we must throw out the opinion piece in Japan Forward, and any text dependent on it, while we may keep the Ramseyer economic analysis presented in the scholarly journal. Binksternet (talk) 01:38, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

See the Age matters and Biased or opinionated sources sections in WP:RS. When new sources contradict old ones, new sources take priority. And given that there is clear bias in favor of sensationalizing the issue, especially due to financial reasons, sources that present a black-and-white picture should be deprioritized in favor of ones that inspect the issue from a more neutral angle. As it so happens, in the 2010s, several new, neutral sources have begun contradicting pre-existing consensus―and that pre-existing consensus in itself was based on a non-neutral source (the 16 testimonies) and hence is to be strictly deprioritized in favor of the new evidence as per WP:UNDUE . This is by no means an uncommon occurrence in the field of historical research; indeed, very often new findings contradict old theories, prompting a thorough re-evaluation of the evidence.

In addition, if you to read through that 1996 paper through critically, as I mention above, you will notice that it directly mentions that the most incriminating part of evidence against the Japanese military indicates that they 1. established the brothels, 2. enforced strict hygiene and use of protection, 3. prohibited weapons and alcohol and 4. laid out rules regarding working hours and compensation. In other words: there is no direct evidence of institutionalized sexual slavery, according to the UN 1996 paper you cite; in fact, the most "incriminating documents" indicate that comfort stations were, indeed, legally operating, high-class brothels.

Now, tell me: where does the 1996 paper get the notion that comfort women were forced to work at the brothels?

You guessed it. The 16 testimonies.

On one side we have an a old, vastly generalized narrative based on 16 financially motivated testimonies. On the other we have newer research by several non-aligned investigators which directly disputes the old narrative. Which side should be given priority on Wikipedia?

Again, defining an issue that may have directly affected 400 000 and indirectly affected tens of millions of people based on 16 testimonies goes directly against WP:UNDUE and amounts to historical distortion. Some sources indicate that those very testimonies had been altered in order to incriminate members of the Japanese military even in situations where the comfort women had been sold by their own parents to the brothels, which would indicate forced prostitution, not sexual slavery; in addition, only 16 out of 238 registered comfort women have testified, with some who expressed disagreement with the allegations being pressured to silence by the activists. Ramseyer's findings and the memoirs of Mun Ok-ju corroborate the notion that comfort stations were legally operating brothels. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 05:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - Per WP:UNDUE, the content about Ramseyer should be removed. STSC (talk) 01:02, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Mentions of sexual slavery may be removed based on WP:UNDUE given the lack of evidence and the economically motivated bias associated with the allegations. Information regarding the majority of comfort women that is confirmed by several independent sources can not, by definition, be given undue weight as per WP:UNDUE and may therefore not be removed. I added several sources above in the Lead Sentence section, all of which include independent research published after the US and UN statements were made (and therefore should be prioritized as per Age matters) each contesting the notion that a significant fraction of comfort women had been kidnapped and/or subjected to sexual slavery. Also, I think we can all agree that the allegations of sexual slavery may have been financially motivated given that they included demands for monetary compensation: hence, any source that directly relies on the 16 testimonies must be deprioritized compared to neutral investigations such as Ramseyer's paper as per Wikipedia's rules regarding Biased or opinionated sources. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 05:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• The comment that "I think we can all agree that the allegations of sexual slavery may have been financially motivated given that they included demands for monetary compensation: hence, any source that directly relies on the 16 testimonies must be deprioritized" seems to violate WP:OR to me. In any case, the links made to the 'independent research' do not support the argument that the majority of comfort women were not coerced; they only acknowledge that, while there were some women who enlisted, many were coerced by forces outside of their control.

As for the UN report, the overall overall conclusion is that "the system of comfort stations set up by the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War was a violation of its obligations under international law and accept legal responsibility for that violation. It also states that "Ultimately, the Japanese were able to procure more women for the increasing demands of the army by using violence and outright coercion. A large number of the women victims speak of violence used on family members who tried to prevent the abduction of their daughters and, in some cases, of being raped by soldiers in front of their parents before being forcibly taken off", supporting the statement that the majority of comfort women were coerced. Furthermore, on the repeated reference made to the 'incriminating documents' and the attempts to downplay them, the UN report clearly states "These regulations are some of the most incriminating of the documents to have survived the war. Not only do they reveal beyond doubt the extent to which the Japanese forces took direct responsibility for the comfort stations and were intimately connected with all aspects of their organization, but they also clearly indicate how legitimized and established an institution the stations had become. Much attention seems to have been paid to see that the "comfort women" were treated correctly. The prohibition of alcohol and swords, the regulation of hours of service, reasonable payment and other attempts to impose what would appear to be a sense of decorum or fair treatment are in stark contrast with the brutality and cruelty of the practice. This only serves to highlight the extraordinary inhumanity of a system of military sexual slavery, in which large numbers of women were forced to submit to prolonged prostitution under conditions which were frequently indescribably traumatic". In other words, the UN concluded that, contrary to the legitimization of the comfort women system, it did not happen in practice, with many comfort women forced to provide sexual services. There was a clear difference between what was said in the documents and what happened in reality. Continued reference to them to say that the majority of comfort women were not coerced would go against what the source directly states.

In any case, Ramseyer's own article seems to be discredited. Yuji Hosaka states that Ramseyer's arguments are "flawed for mentioning only certain documents as evidence, and questioned his intentions in publishing the article at this time when tension over the issue runs high between the two countries" and "the documents that Dr Ramseyer used in his article do not tell the full story, including the 1938 regulation by the Home Ministry on recruiting women for the overseas comfort station". It should therefore be deleted. NettingFish15019 (talk) 06:13, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I addressed some of these points above, in the Lead sentence section, so I'll do my best to avoid making redundant arguments here. Going point by point:

1. It is mentioned in the Apologies and compensation section of the main article that many comfort women accepted financial compensation, and that three South Korean women explicitly demanded monetary compensation for forced prostitution. In addition, one of the testimonies was later changed, seemingly in an effort to falsely incriminate members of the Imperial Army; originally the woman testified that she had been taken to work at a brothel by her father (who operated said brothel) but she later changed her story, now claiming that she had in fact been kidnapped by Japanese soldiers―which clearly seems unnatural; why, then, would she have decided to "falsely incriminate" her own father in the first place? It seems much more logical to assume that she fabricated the allegations out of to financial motivations or due to pressure by the activists. Either way, all of this is strong circumstantial evidence to indicate that the 16 testimonies by former comfort women are less neutral than, for instance, Ramseyer's paper or the books by Soh and Park.

2. The UN 1996 paper only mentions the 16 testimonies as evidence of forced prostitution. The "hard evidence" such as official documents mentioned in the report only proves that the Imperial Army was responsible for establishing the brothels and that they ensured hygiene and safety. I address this point in more detail above and in my posts in the Lead sentence section, but this possibility of non-neutrality, combined with the age of the report, means that the UN 1996 paper should be deprioritized relative to newer studies based on Age matters, Biased or opinionated sources and WP:UNDUE. "The large number of victims" in this case refers to 16 testimonies, which is by no means a large number when we consider that the ianfu system, by some estimates, must have indirectly affected millions, if not tens of millions of people. This would be akin to Nazi concentration camps being "proved" by testimonies by 16 former prisoners out of hundreds of thousands of survivors. This is neither realistic nor logical, and runs directly against the rules delineated in WP:RELIABILITY and WP:UNDUE.

3. I agree, however, in that the testimonies do seem to indicate that forced prostitution and rapes did occur to some extent. None of the sources support the notion that this problem affected more than 1% of comfort women, however. And I'm not asserting that 99% of the women had been voluntary, either; I'm pointing out the fact that, according to the sources currently cited in the article, we have no way to determine whether 99% of the comfort women served voluntarily or involuntarily, and that all sources that claim otherwise are purely based on opinion, not facts. There is no indication that the majority had been forced to work in the comfort stations, nor that the majority had served voluntarily, and hence, all conjecture should be removed from the definition, as I suggested above in the Lead sentence section.

4. The only argument the UN 1996 report makes to delegimitize the official documents is, again, the 16 (potentially financially motivated) testimonies and has since been challenged by newer, more neutral sources. Again, for all we know, 99% of comfort women could have been sold to the brothels against their will by their parents and henceforth been forced to work until they had paid off their debt. This notion is not supported by any solid evidence, however, nor would it incriminate the Imperial Japanese Army as much as it would if we assumed that girls had indeed been kidnapped by members of the military itself.

5. If you examine the sources cited in this article, you'll notice that most, if not all, of them ultimately converge on a few primary sources dating to the 1990s and exhibit noticeable Confirmation Bias, drawing conclusions based on one-sided cherry-picking of evidence and unsubstantiated leaps of logic. As I pointed out above, most of them ultimately rely on the 16 testimonies, plus, apparently, testimonies regarding three isolated cases of abuse of authority by military personnel in Southeast Asia (Source: Books by Yoshiaki Yoshimi published in 1995, 2000; mentioned in more detail in my first post in this section). If we write the article based on old, seemingly biased sources (16 financially motivated testimonies) while refusing to give equal weight to neutral sources that question the original narrative, this in itself would be in direct violation of Wikipedia's policy regarding Biased or opinionated sources.

6. The Straits Times article states that Ramseyer's paper goes against victim testimonies (which does nothing to refute it, given that victims presumably had little knowledge of how the system as a whole worked outside of their personal experience) and that it does not "tell the full story". No source is provided in the article, and for all we know this view is purely based on the opinion of the interviewee. It's also worth noting that Media Bias Fact Check lists The Straits Times as a somewhat biased, right-leaning news outlet, so I'm unsure why you feel it (or even a hundred similar articles) would somehow counterbalance an academical article that actually cites its sources. The interviewee himself is a political science professor teaching at a South Korean university, so he himself seems to be both potentially biased as well as unqualified to refute Ramseyer's claims, especially given that he fails to cite any evidence that would support his claims.

In summary, based on all the evidence presented thus far, there seems to be little room for doubt in that the article, as it currently stands, is strongly biased in favor of a skewed, pro-activist interpretation. This issue must be rectified by consulting neutral sources from other viewpoints as per WP:NPOV in order to restore historical accuracy, and Ramseyer's article (alongside the books by Soh and Park and other sources cited in the Lead sentence section here) does seem to fit the bill perfectly. ■ Bavio the Benighted (talk) 08:19, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Now that I've seen the published opposition to Ramseyer's scholarly journal article, I am removing my support for that piece. As a result, my stance is now that Ramseyer is completely WP:UNDUE and should be removed entirely. Binksternet (talk) 22:12, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Either you missed my post above or you're unwilling to engage in logical debate. The published opposition is irrelevant as per WP:NPOV, Biased or opinionated sources and WP:VERIFY, as I note above. It's also very clearly stated in the rules that Wikipedia is not a platform for opinion pieces, which the "published opposition" amounts to in this case.

I accused you previously of uncritically parroting the claims of sources that confirm your own bias in favor of the activists' interpretation. You now seem to embrace that label. Either way, do realize that your stance is irrelevant unless someone counters the points I presented above, so you should start there if you want Ramseyer's piece removed. Wikipedia is not a democracy, so an editor's "vote" means nothing unless backed by reliable sources and/or a solid argument. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 06:03, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

You're the one who was picking and choosing parts of the UN report, ignoring the perfectly clear conclusion statement they published at the very top to help people digest all the interviews and research. You wanted to reject the UN conclusion and take only those portions that confirmed your bias. Me, I'm seeing that a scholarly paper by Ramseyer has been challenged for misrepresenting the topic, so that makes me reject the scholarly paper as a reliable source. Now the paper stands as Ramseyer's opinion, requiring attribution if we wanted to tell the reader about the scholarly disagreement between Ramseyer and others, which seems like undue emphasis. The Ramseyer dispute doesn't appear to be critically important at this time. Binksternet (talk) 06:29, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I didn't misrepresent the 1996 UN report in any way or form; on the contrary, I read through it critically to pin-point exactly where they got their evidence from, and questioned the validity of their claims by pointing out that the evidence they themselves cite did not support their own conclusions. This is what we are supposed to do with all of the sources we cite, as per WP:VERIFY.

As for why I feel the published opposition to Ramseyer's paper is irrelevant in this context, please see point 6 of my post above. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 06:45, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but Wikipedia:Reliable sources says nothing at all about your method of examining the source's own research documents to see whether the source made the right conclusions. Nothing at all in Wikipedia supports your stance on that. The closest thing to that is WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, which allows us to judge whether the source is reliable for the particular statement it is making. There's nothing in CONTEXTMATTERS that would allow you to question the comfort women–related conclusions of a United Nations commission on comfort women, who are the highest placed experts in the world on the issue, and are clearly the most reliable source that we can ever find. CONTEXTMATTERS is more about whether a popular author can be trusted for scientific facts, or a sports reporter writing about politics; stuff like that. But with the UN group, the experts of the world put their best effort at understanding the issue, and they concluded that the comfort women program involved sex slavery on a massive scale.

Because you are not abiding by Wikipedia policy on reliable sources, your arguments here have no leverage. Binksternet (talk) 07:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

See Sources that are usually not reliable. Quote: "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that (...) rely heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor or personal opinion. They are not suitable sources for contentious claims about others."

In particular, the 1996 UN report relies heavily on the rapporteur's personal opinion, and exhibits strong confirmation bias in drawing its conclusions. It presents little to no factual evidence corroborating the content of the victim testimonies, and this lack of fact-checking is directly reflected in its conclusion. In addition, a "UN rapporteur" is never as reliable a source as a peer reviewed article is (simply for the reason that their report is not subjected to a rigorous process of peer review) especially if they make sweeping generalizations based on old, disputed and/or financially motivated anecdotes.

You seem to be trying to argue that editors should neither read their sources nor exercise critical thinking before citing them. I.e. you seem to literally endorse parroting views instead of citing actual evidence. As said, this goes directly against the rules delineated in WP:VERIFY, not to mention that it beats the point of citing any evidence to begin with.

Also, you mention that the UN report was based on an investigation by "the experts of the world", and that these experts somehow came to the conclusion that "the comfort women program involved sex slavery on a massive scale". This is an interesting statement, since the UN report itself suggests nothing of the sort. Indeed, its conclusions seem to be purely based on the 16 victim testimonies. So, would you care to elaborate on what sort of investigation was performed by which experts, exactly? Bavio the Benighted (talk) 08:38, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

You are out of scope here. Wikipedia does not encourage editors to engage in their own original research, which is what you persist in doing. If you think the UN report is flawed, publish your own analysis to challenge them in print. Don't fool yourself thinking you can challenge them here on a talk page. That's not how it works on Wikipedia. Binksternet (talk) 08:59, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

You have cited WP:V a couple of times now, as a notional support for your stance, but you should actually read what it says. It does not tell us to dig into a published document from a reliable source to perform our own analysis on their data, to see whether their conclusions were accurate. Not at all. You apparently think that WP:Verifiability means WP:Please verify every fact and every conclusion, which is wrong. Rather, it means that the source you are citing should be reasonably available for others to verify that it contains what you say it contains. Binksternet (talk) 09:10, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I see you willfully ignored all of my actual arguments. In that case all I need to do to counter everything you just wrote is to quote the very arguments you deliberately ignored:

"See Sources that are usually not reliable. Quote: "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that (...) rely heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor or personal opinion. They are not suitable sources for contentious claims about others."

In particular, the 1996 UN report relies heavily on the rapporteur's personal opinion, and exhibits strong confirmation bias in drawing its conclusions. It presents little to no factual evidence corroborating the content of the victim testimonies, and this lack of fact-checking is directly reflected in its conclusion. In addition, a "UN rapporteur" is never as reliable a source as a peer reviewed article is (simply for the reason that their report is not subjected to a rigorous process of peer review) especially if they make sweeping generalizations based on old, disputed and/or financially motivated anecdotes.

Also, you mention that the UN report was based on an investigation by "the experts of the world", and that these experts somehow came to the conclusion that "the comfort women program involved sex slavery on a massive scale". This is an interesting statement, since the UN report itself suggests nothing of the sort. Indeed, its conclusions seem to be purely based on the 16 victim testimonies. So, would you care to elaborate on what sort of investigation was performed by which experts, exactly? "

If you insist on ignoring these points, you are effectively admitting that you are unable to come up with a rational counterargument and are forced to pull a straw man to salvage your case (which, again, only goes to show that what you're really trying to do here is to confirm your own biased viewpoint, rather than attempting to establish a truly neutral point of view based on the available evidence).

The 1996 UN report is clearly an unreliable source given the discrepancy between the evidence it cites and the conclusions it draws (see the arguments above). It's an opinion piece, and therefore―in line with WP:VERIFY―it should be given less weight than peer reviewed articles. It's also old and based on potentially financially motivated testimonies, which means it should be deprioritized further relative to newer research in accordance with Age matters, as well as relative to sources that are less obviously affected by ulterior motives as per Biased or opinionated sources and WP:NPOV. Ramseyer's paper fills both requirements, given that none of the accusations regarding his potential connection to Mitsubishi have been substantiated, merely amounting to argumenta ad hominem at this point. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 10:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

The Harvard Crimson is publishing more challenges to Ramseyer from top scholars, including Harvard professor of Korean history Carter J. Eckert and Harvard historian Andrew Gordon, University of Connecticut professor of Japanese and Korean history Alexis Dudden, and comfort women topic expert Pyong Gap Min, a sociology professor at Queens College, New York. All of these have leveled serious accusations of flawed research. And Ramseyer says again he does not understand the Korean language, which is damning. Binksternet (talk) 09:29, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

The article mentions Ramseyer's own counterarguments: namely, that the critics fail to cite any actual evidence supporting their claims. Unverifiable statements, i.e. opinions, have little value compared to peer-reviewed articles, as per WP:VERIFY (see above). And him not citing Korean sources is unlikely to affect his results, given that all of the "hard evidence", namely military documents, government documents and official documents kept by brothel owners, were written in Japanese at the time. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 10:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I strongly believe that Ramseyer's article should be included, though I agree that the scholarly article is much preferable the website Japan Forward. Sources vary on whether Ramseyer's views represent a majority of the scholarly community, but they're at least a major point of view, not much different from the views of other mainstream historians like Professors Hata Ikuhiko, Choi Kilsong, Tsutomu Nishioka, etc... The fact that a few other scholars have criticized Ramseyer's views doesn't make them illegitimate. In that case, this article would have no sources at all, because, due to the controversial nature of the subject, every book on the comfort women is heavily criticized from one angle or another. The most heavily used source in the article currently is the book by George Hicks, whose information was mostly based on his interviews with Seiji Yoshida, who later admitted to having lied about what he said. It's fair to include controversial material in this article, since it's all controversial, as long as no proveable falsehoods are included. Hicks has received far more criticism for his use of fabricated testimonies that Ramseyer has, but no one objects to using Hicks in this article. YUEdits (talk) 22:06, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

• I get your point YUEdits and agree with it partially in terms of how the controversial nature of this topic makes it such that there will be strong criticism for many viewpoints. But I think the difference with Ramseyer's article is that his research methods were questioned by several academics, like Yuji Hosaka, who says ""Ramseyer made the error of completely ignoring the fact that these recruiters were working under Japanese military or government orders", rather than the stance that Ramseyer is taking in particular. It's also being investigated by the journal which was originally planning to publish his article (source) and may plan not to in the future. Maybe it'd be best for the article not to be included, at least until the investigation is finished? NettingFish15019 (talk) 04:41, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Ramseyer's article is well-sourced, and it was defended by several scholars in Japan and Korea.. A lengthy critique (archived) was posted a few days ago, and as can be readily confirmed when reading it alongside Ramseyer's papers, the critics:

1) Misinterpret several of Ramseyer's arguments (which is ironic, since they accuse Ramseyer of misrepresenting sources). E.g. they assume Ramseyer claimed the prostitutes were "free to leave whenever they wanted". This is false: Ramseyer explicitly states that most of the comfort women had large advance payments paid to themselves or their families, putting them in a debtor-creditor relationship with the brothel owners. Ramseyer writes, again very explicitly, that the owners were likely concerned about the possibility that comfort women would attempt to default on their debts, and he also mentioned that, ostensibly, this was less of an issue on the warzone.

The following excerpt is another good example: "At the same time, full translations of these documents, especially “Shina 1938,” reveal repeated references to “the situation on the ground” and the unavoidable necessity of allowing Japanese women to travel to China to work in prostitution. This contradicts Ramseyer’s assertion that there was no need to traffic women for the purposes of sex because “The Japanese military did not need additional prostitutes; it had plenty. Prostitutes have followed armies everywhere, and they followed the Japanese army in Asia” (5)". The "concerned historians" completely misread Ramseyer's claim. His paper states that there was no need for the military to recruit women coercively since they could send domestic prostitutes to the frontlines―exactly what the "trafficking" they refer to (i.e. the government allowing prostitutes to travel abroad, as stated by the source) entailed.

Ramseyer also states that Korea had a pre-established culture of prostitution and recruitment that the comfort woman system took advantage of, but the historians somehow warp this, taking it as claiming that the establishment of the ianfu system had nothing to do with the Japanese military. This is clearly not what Ramseyer's paper is saying at all.

2) Misrepresent their sources. E.g. an excerpt:

A full translation of this notice tells us that the warning was issued because of the widespread misconduct in recruitment of women to work at comfort stations, relaying the information discussed in “Naimusho 1938,” and even going so far as to call the methods of recruitment in Japan similar to “kidnapping”:

In recruiting women employees and others in Japan proper for the establishment of comfort stations in the region around the China Incident [Beijing], there are those that act in the name of the military etc, thereby damaging the prestige of the military and inviting misunderstanding by the general public. There are also those that recruit [women] via war correspondents and visitors to the front, with no oversight, creating social problems. There are also cases in which the choice of people entrusted with recruitment was inappropriate and thus they were arrested and examined by police authorities due to methods of recruitment which resembled kidnapping. As such, no few cases require attention, and in the future women’s recruitment should be regulated by the Expeditionary Army. [This notice] orders that they carefully select the people to be entrusted with this, that the operation be conducted in close contact with military police [kenpei] and the police authorities of the relevant locations, that the prestige of the military be maintained, and that attention be paid to ensure nothing is amiss regarding social problems. "

Here, the source mentions several types of misconduct that "require attention": 1. "(...) there are those that act in the name of the military etc, thereby damaging the prestige of the military and inviting misunderstanding by the general public"; 2. "There are also those that recruit [women] via war correspondents and visitors to the front, with no oversight, creating social problems."; 3. "There are also cases in which the choice of people entrusted with recruitment was inappropriate and thus they were arrested and examined by police authorities due to methods of recruitment which resembled kidnapping".

From the phrasing (use of "also" in the end) we can readily tell that "recruitment which resembled kidnapping" was the exception rather than the norm. And notice that they say the recruiters in question were "arrested due to methods of recruitment that resembled kidnapping", meaning that the recruitment practices seemed coercive on the outside, enough to warrant the attention of the police. Whether these cases could actually have been considered to constitute kidnappings is unknown. So, ironically enough, the "concerned historians" are guilty of the exact issue they (largely falsely) accuse Ramseyer of --- misrepresentation of sources.

They also make grand leaps of logic to establish their case. E.g. they use the following (a piece of guidance from the Japanese Home Ministry issued in 1938) as indication that the government of Japan was willfully trafficking women against their own volition:

"Recently, given the reestablishment of order in various parts of China, the number of emigrants to China has markedly increased. Among them are no small number of women who are traveling to work at restaurants, bars, “cafes,” and also brothels and related establishments. Moreover, in Japan, every region has seen an increase in cases in which recruiters of these women claim to be acting with the approval of military leadership.

Bearing in mind the situation in China, women’s emigration is surely necessary and unavoidable. The police have also given this careful consideration and recognize the need for taking steps that are based on real conditions on the ground. However, without proper regulation of these women’s recruitment, it will damage the prestige of the Japanese empire and tarnish the honor of the Imperial Army, and it will also exert an undesirable influence on people on the homefront and, especially, the family members of those drafted into military service. It will also be difficult to guarantee that recruitment does not contravene international treaty agreements concerning the trafficking of women. Therefore, with these considerations in mind, and taking into account the situation on the ground, we issue the following guidance:

For women traveling for the purposes of work in prostitution, for the time being we will tacitly permit this only in the case of women heading to North and Central China who are currently working as licensed prostitutes or in other professions which are, in reality, prostitution; who are 21 years of age or older; and who are free of venereal and other infectious diseases. Identity documents will be issued to these women by the Foreign Ministry pursuant to Foreign Ministry Classified Instruction No. 3776, dated August 31st 1937 ["On the Restriction of Travel to China by Undesirable Elements"]"

They explain their reasoning as follows: "(this) indicates that deceptive or coercive recruitment did occur. This also indicates that Japan was contravening an international agreement whereby countries would not traffic women, even with their consent, if they were subject to an "abuse of authority".

Yet nowhere does the source indicate anything of the sort. They use the word "tacitly permit" as an indication that the Japanese government was engaging in something illegal, but this is a far-fetched argument. The wording could just as easily mean that bureaucratic procedures that would normally have applied had temporarily been suspended to allow licensed prostitutes to travel more freely to occupied territories.

3) Rely on straw men to make their point. E.g. that some comfort women never got access to their savings accounts after the end of the war. This is a legal issue, relating to some comfort women having lost their Japanese citizen status after the end of the war via the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty. This does certainly not indicate active deception as much as it indicates opportunism by brothel owners facilitated by the change in circumstances brought about by the end of the war.

4) Argue that isolated cases of voluntary prostitution should not be generalized into a larger context to assert that all comfort women were voluntary prostitutes. And this is absolutely fair... until you realize that this is exactly the foundation underlying the "sex slave" narrative. Given that there is no evidence of widespread sexual slavery other than testimonies of isolated cases, if absence of evidence is to be taken as evidence of absence, the activist narrative falls apart. And this would indeed discredit all academic publications defining comfort women as "sex slaves" or as "women or girls forced to prostitution".

5) Argue that none of Ramseyer's sources explicitly state that the comfort women consented to the work fully knowing what it entailed. But again, this goes both ways: very few sources make any mention of comfort women trying to resist or decline to work. And of the ones that do, many belong to a dubious category of testimonies of which some are known to have been fabricated and censored by the orders of Chong Dae Hyup. We can be confident in our assessment that some comfort women were trafficked, abused or forced to work against their will, but there is absolutely nothing to indicate that this type of practice was any more common in the ianfu system than in any system of prostitution in general, even by modern standards (check the two links here).

6) Display a fundamental lack of understanding of what the comfort stations were. A hilarious quote from the open letter: "Ramseyer’s argument in 3.6 appears to conflate “brothels” and “comfort stations.”". Turns out these historians are unaware of the fact that the comfort stations were brothels. This just goes to show deeply entrenched their preconceptions are in terms of this topic: they're probably accustomed to thinking of the comfort stations as some sort of spooky slave dungeons.

7) Misinterpret the sources. E.g. they say "Both paragraphs in Hata posit a connection between wartime mobilization, the collapse of the prostitution industry, and the funneling of women into comfort stations, whether overseas or in Japan. This is in direct contradiction to Ramseyer’s overall argument in 3.6 (his argument: “brothels went out of business” during the closing years of the war, which contradicts scholars who argue that “those were the years [the Japanese government] most aggressively recruited comfort women”)". Now, looking at said paragraphs, we find the following statement: "with the intensification of the war, the numbers of both business owners (gyōsha) and licensed prostitutes (kōshō) who changed professions or closed their businesses increased.", i.e. the paragraph very clearly corroborates Ramseyer's claim. I'm not sure how they managed to misinterpret this one. And the paragraph continues: "In February of 1944 they were all shut down. Newspapers from the time report ‘all 37,000 geisha [J: geigi] from across the nation to be sent to factories in the ‘Women’s volunteer corps’ [joshi teishintai]’. However in the Metropolitan Police Department’s official history, there are accounts of emergency comfort stations [rinji ianjo] being set up near munitions factories, so these women may have worked a day shift at the factories and a night shift at the comfort station". In other words, there were some accounts of geisha working at factories as well as at nearby comfort stations in day-night shifts. Again, none of this is in conflict with Ramseyer's claims.

8) Make statements indicating that they prepared the "rebuttal" in a hurry. In several segments they mention being unable to find the page Ramseyer was citing, and, on page 20, they flatly state that "Because we could not obtain a copy of Ahn Byung-Jik’s work in a timely manner due to the current global pandemic (...)" which demonstrates that they were in a haste to prepare the counterargument. This seems like a clear indication that they are trying to suppress Ramseyer's paper completely, possibly because it exposes errors in previous publications they or their colleagues had authored. On a STEM field, this type of practice is nearly unheard of---a paper would never be redacted simply because it contests an accepted narrative, especially if said narrative is based on limited evidence.

So, in conclusion, no reliable source has demonstrated that the claims in Ramseyer's paper would be fundamentally flawed in any way or form. He has received support on an international level, so we should absolutely not censor his paper simply out of a desire to conform to an existing narrative. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 04:16, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not going to respond to this wall of text at the risk of adding my own wall, except to note that all these points are based on original research using assumptions on or reinterpreting what the scholars who wrote the letter thought (ignoring that this letter is not the only sustained criticism of Ramseyer's article, as has previously been pointed out). The two sources cited at point 5 bear little relevance, considering that both articles mention nothing about comfort women. My argument against including Ramseyer's article stems from severe doubt as to his research methods (such as here, here, here, as well as other sources included in this talk page), the fact that the journal is delaying and may pull publication of his article due to those doubts (source), and as other articles penned by Ramseyer are being significantly revised due to their POV and/or research methods (source and source). It should not be added in light of these concerns and was deleted accordingly.

This section, and other related talk page discussions relating to this topic, have ended near a week ago after months of discussion. It died a natural death. As has been recommended to you before, please drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass and let it go. NettingFish15019 (talk) 05:11, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

You confuse original research with arguments regarding the reliability and verifiability of a source; my points belong to the latter category. And "severe doubt" has also been expressed by independent investigators―namely Sarah Soh, Park Yu-ha and Ramseyer―towards the research methods of academics who support the "system of sexual slavery" narrative, yet our Wikipedia article here relies heavily on several dubious sources of this nature. As per WP:NPOV, given that the two sides of the debate are balanced (not necessarily in terms of total number of publications, but certainly in terms of the number of reliable publications) neither can be considered undue, and hence neither side should be censored.

The sources you linked are unreliable compared to Ramseyer's paper, given that they make unverifiable statements. The one I linked above is well-sourced and much more authoritative---I suggest reading it (and the wall of text by me above) if you're genuinely concerned about the validity of Ramseyer's methodology.

The publication of Ramseyer's paper was not delayed because of perceived "fault"; if it had been deemed erroneous, the digital version would have been redacted. In reality, the publication of the print version was postponed so that comments and replies could be published in the same issue to give readers access to the "fullest possible picture" according to the editorial team of the journal.

The sources at point 5 make sense when you read the final sentence of that paragraph.

And yes, the discussion "died a natural death" when STSC removed the template and I was blocked when I attempted to revert the change. Anyone could just as easily make the "sex slave" side of the debate die a "natural death" by blocking you and other users who support it from voicing your views. I don't think this is how discussions work, though, and I'm not entirely sure why you feel this is a valid point that corroborates your stance.

And you're alluding to Daniel Case's arguments, which, as I mentioned above, assumed that I was the only one arguing for changing the lede and that Ramseyer's was the only source questioning the sex slave narrative. Neither assumption is true; see my newest comments in the Proposal section. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 06:36, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, I note that YUEdits, XiAdonis, Bavio, and myself support some sort of reference to John Mark Ramseyer in the article. That outnumbers NettingFish, Binksternet, and STSC who apparently want to suppress dissenting views. Set aside this "poll" to look at the substance of the arguments and it's even more lopsided.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:53, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Setting aside the point that consensus is not a poll or counted by a simple majority (WP:CONS), the point I make and which Bavio the Benighted has not addressed is that in rebutting the serious concerns regarding Ramseyer's arguments, he has relied on 'research that is not exclusively based on a summary, review, or synthesis of earlier publications on the subject of research". WP:NPOV only applies where sources themselves support both sides of a supposed debate, but here Ramseyer's article cannot be considered authoritative given the severe criticisms that have been made. Bavio the Benighted makes the point that somehow the sources linked are "unreliable", yet the fact that there is a wealth of such concerns by a broad range of academics suggests that in fact that there are legitimate academic-related concerns. Bavio the Benighted helpfully links to the editorial team of the journal shows there are substantiated concerns regarding the article that the journal is taking into account. At the very least, until such review is completed, the paper should not be included or else risk an unrepresentative view of Ramseyer's paper.

Therefore, WP:ONUS has not been reached to show that the paper may be included in the article. NettingFish15019 (talk) 03:44, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

The following was inserted at this point out of time sequence:

Wikipedia is not a democracy; and it's not a forum for free speech, we don't have to include any dissenting views. STSC (talk) 18:41, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, there is WP:DUE. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:26, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I get that you don't agree with Ramseyer and agree with his critics. But that doesn't advance an argument for entirely excluding any reference to him at all. What you need to do, and haven't, is specifically cite where in WP:RS you find grounds to deem both Ramseyer and the International Review of Law and Economics unreliable sources (which you then use to justify the WP:NPOV violation, claiming it doesn't apply).--Brian Dell (talk) 07:34, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Most of the sources currently cited in the article have been criticized―quite heavily―by independent investigators and professors in Japan and Korea for presenting a slanted view of the topic as well as for their failure to perform basic fact-checking (for sources: see my response to you, on this talk page, regarding propaganda). Criticism of Ramseyer's paper is much more nitpicky in nature (see my post above). That the paper has been "criticized" is, therefore, not a valid argument for censoring it.

Ramseyer's article has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. This means that it has been subjected to far more scrutiny (the process of peer-review) than an average book is. Quoting WP:RS:

"When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. However, some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, or controversial within the relevant field. Try to cite current scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent. Reliable non-academic sources may also be used in articles about scholarly issues, particularly material from high-quality mainstream publications. Deciding which sources are appropriate depends on context. Material should be attributed in-text where sources disagree."

In other words, Ramseyer's paper fills the absolute highest standard for inclusion as per Wikipedia's rules. In addition, Ramseyer's article is strongly in conflict only with non-academic sources, such as the 1996 UN paper, which, if I may remind you, I've repeatedly proven to be largely based on opinion, relying on sources that are both biased and outdated; see e.g. my comment in the Proposal section.

And again, you conflate analyses regarding the reliability and verifiability of a source―something editors are highly encouraged to do―with original research. If you read my comments carefully, you should notice that I never made any attempts to draw new conclusions that were not already expressed by at least one reliable source. I explained this to you in my comment above; why did you ignore my argument there, only to post the same fallacy here?

I do concur in that as soon as the printed version is published, criticism of his views should also be mentioned in the article. Given that all of the sources in the article supporting the "sex slave" narrative have been disputed, though, it would obviously be extremely hypocritical for us to only censor Ramseyer's view while uncritically broadcasting the opinions of less reliable sources.

For now, given that it satisfies the highest standard for inclusion as delineated in WP:RS, Ramseyer's view should be restored to the article, and this part should be revised once more when the printed version is out so that we can present opposing views as well. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 07:49, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

References

I find this article highly biased without the opposing view, such as Ramseyer's and the Japanese government. Both sides are claiming the other does not have evidence, and to some extent they are both correct.

Wikipedia should illustrate the truth, even if it doesn't not fall under the narrative you want. For an article like this, that is largely based on things without solid evidence, it would be wise to include both sides.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/Ramseyer_995.pdf Weagesdf (talk) 17:58, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Certainly you've seen the terminal criticism against Ramseyer's scholarship, completely undermining his conclusions. He's dished. Binksternet (talk) 18:09, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

"Dished"?? Is there a WP:POLICY equivalent term for that? Should it be explained in WP:DUE? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:32, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Heh heh. It's from Jane Eyre, chapter 19. It means beaten, prevailed over, conquered, overcome. Binksternet (talk) 20:46, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I dug that up

... I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; ... ; and probably she loves him; ... I would advise her black-a-vised^fc suitor to look out,; if another comes. with a longer or clearer rent-roll, he's dished.

Hell, I'm barely literate -- don't expect me to be literary. The best-fit usage I found without that hint was from here:

to criticize someone or something; to spread gossip about someone or something. (see also dis(s).) The critics all dished the opening of the play mercilessly.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:03, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

The well-researched seafaring Aubrey–Maturin series uses a bunch of 18th- and 19th century slang. The author has Aubrey exclaiming about how some wrecked nautical thing is "dished". That series is much more recent in my stack of reading. Binksternet (talk) 20:46, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

European comfort women, mistress, rapes during the initial occupation.

Most of the European comfort women were Dutch but there also minority of other European nationality but is unknow how many of them are victims. European interned women either had to choose between brothel comfort women or a mistress to Japanese men.

Everything I written is sourced from historical facts of Mark Felton, a famous world war II historian. The source is right here Japan's Gestapo Murder, Mayhem and Torture in Wartime Asia By Mark Felton, 2009.and also in his 2011 book [2] Children of the Camps: Japan's Last Forgotten Victims, By Mark Felton, 2011. This is what it's said at the bottom of the page "Fewer European women were available for work in the brothels, as most of them [Living outside of the internment camps] preferred to establish relationship as mistress to one Japanese man "

A unknown number of white females and children's were either raped or sexually assaulted at various locations such as Banoeng, Padang, Tarakan, Menado, Flores island and Blora, at the beginning of the Japanese initial invasion and occupation.

According to Scottish American K'tut Tantri (Muriel Stuart Walker), born from Scotland of United Kingdom, she was a script writer for Hollywood, but after leaving America, she lived in Indonesia for a new career. She and also lived in Australia. When she lived in Indonesia and was a Indonesian broadcaster for Dutch and British. She was radio broadcaster for the Indonesian Republicans during the Indonesian National Revolution. She said" [3] " Many of the high Japanese officers had acquired white mistresses, most of them Dutch who preferred that kind of life to the concentration camp. .Vamlos (talk) 02:48, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Those are not Felton's words. Felton is quoting another source, listed as footnote 2 which I cannot read in the Google preview. After the quote, Felton says that the Kempeitai cited reasons such as this to provide justification for their forced recruitment of women from internment camps. Felton is not endorsing the quote you wish to include. He is setting it up as an example of the Japanese rationale for their war crime activity. Binksternet (talk) 03:53, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I never said these are Feltons word. I simply stated that it's inside the book source of his in 2009 and 2011. If I was claiming Mark Felton said those things I would have edited he said or Mark Felton said . I simply italized that sentence and gave it quoting marks so people can distinguish it clearly. Also there's also Muriel Stuart Walker as evidence. She said "many of the high Japanese officers had acquired white mistresses".Vamlos (talk) 12:22, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

It is critically important whether Felton wrote the words himself to represent the topic, or quoted the words to show a horrible example of Japanese rationale. In the first case, we could simply summarize the words in Wikipedia's voice. In the second case, which is where we are now, we must follow WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV—find out the source quote (apparently Kenpeitai) and tell the reader that Felton is describing a Japanese rationale for their horrible action of forcibly taking women from the internment camps. Binksternet (talk) 15:28, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Well I don't know if he wrong the words himself. It's simply both of Mark Felton's book in 2009 and 2011. For the evidence of mistress with Japanese. I would just use K'tut Tantri source as evidence of European mistress for Japanese officers. According to The Romance of K'tut Tantri and Indonesia By Timothy Lindsey · 2008 [4], she too was a mistress of Japanese officers and that not all European women were comfort women working in brothel, this is from the collected documentation of Japanese war crimes.Vamlos (talk) 19:59, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

If you think you are ready to compose a new addition to the article, propose it here. Binksternet (talk) 22:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Well okay. I will compose a new addition to the article.

During the beginning of the Japanese initial invasion and occupation, a unknown number of white females and children's were raped or sexually assaulted at various locations of Indonesia. To help prevent the spread of rapes of Japanese troops, European females were recruited as comfort women from their interned camps. European females from interned camps had a choice of either working in the brothel for Japanese troops or being a mistress to a high ranking Japanese officers, with latter being more preferable by European females.[5] Many Japanese officers had acquired their own white mistress with most of them being of Dutch origin with a minority of other European females.[6] One of the interned white mistress of Japanese officer was Muriel Stuart Walker of Scottish American origin. [7]Vamlos (talk) 13:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

This gives too much WP:WEIGHT to a minor aspect. I would rather see fewer words, a shorter proposal. Mark Felton's book is useful for establishing the fact that Japanese troops were raping women and children in the absence of a military brothel system. The book by K'tut Tantri should not be used at all; she is writing about one person's experiences, not a study of the larger picture. Timothy Lindsey's book is better because it places Tantri in the larger context. Binksternet (talk) 16:49, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Here is a shorter proposal.

The initial invasion of Indonesia saw a unknown number of white females and children being raped by Japanese troops. Comfort women were established to help prevent further rapes. Interned European females had the choice of either working in a military brothel or becoming a mistress. Many Japanese officers had acquired white mistresses', most of them were Dutch, with a minority of other Europeans.[8] [9]Vamlos (talk) 18:01, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I took the liberty of summarizing Felton and Lindsey myself. See whether this represents the material. I tried to blend it into the existing text, to retain the reading flow. Binksternet (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

I have no problem with it. We can keep it like that.Vamlos (talk) 22:51, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Assertion re 16,161 comfort women from Papua, New Guinea

Here, I have removed the assertion and the source citation added here re 16,161 comfort women from Papua, New Guinea. This removal is based on the following content from page 96 of the cited source:

However, a New Guinean activist came to Japan in the summer of 1998 and revealed figures indicating there had been 2,388 cannibals and 16,161 comfort women in Eastern New Guinea. While the existence of cannibals in this theater of the war was known, there were doubts as to the second claim, about the comfort women.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 17:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Followed immediately to

Horie Masao, former staff officer with the Eighteenth Army, is likely correct when he says, “Soldiers who had nothing to eat and nothing to drink would not have been physically able” to visit comfort stations. Although it was possible the comfort women claims were confused with rape cases,.

And same content from page 96

As for western New Guinea (the former Dutch New Guinea), a Dutch government report records, “There was a Japanese military comfort station, at which Papuan women worked

Now the only question is how many local women were used as comfort women. A New Guinean activist claim that figure but it's doubted only to Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata, a leading historian on the subject of the comfort women who served alongside the Japanese Army in the 1930s and 1940s. However we have Japanese historians who deny the existence of Rape of Nanking, we have Japanese historians who refute comfort women's claims. We have Japanese historian who disagree with Chinese/western historian's figures. So we can't just rely on Japanese pro-opinion. The author of the book is a Japanese historian, his assertion is according to the Japanese historians perspective. The fact that a New Guinean activist made this claim doesn't mean is 100% false.

A story about Papuan Guinean women testify on Japanese war crimes [10] " A WW2 papuan comfort women witness Japanese soldiers taking many local Papuan women " They have taken many women from the village North Biak "Vamlos (talk) 06:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

So, we have two viewpoints reported in the source, an un-named person described as an "activist" and the author of the paper (an apparently reputable Japanese historian who is doubted by a WP editor because other Japanese historians are said to have made facially incorrect claims). In WP, sources behind the source cited generally are not considered anyhow -- the source cited stands on its own perceived reliability. I'm not prepared to argue further about this (it's a matter for WT:RS) or about the relative weight of the un-named "activist" vs the unsupported assertion by the author that "there were doubts as to the second claim" (though I will say that I take that as a claim by the author that doubts were expressed by other persons he does not name). IMO, this cited source would support an assertion to the effect that a Dutch government report records that there was a Japanese military comfort station in Western New Guinea at which Papuan women worked and that it had also been reported that there were comfort women in Eastern New Guinea. If the number 161,161 is asserted in the article, IMO that would need clarifying info from the paper re its source and the doubts. Re the other video you link, and I disclaim that I don't understand Dutch(?), I notice that this alternative source says that the original audio of the video fragment has gone missing and, given this, I take your quote to be of a later narrator trying to fill in what the missing audio might have said. I'm guessing that there are other sources out there which would support assertions to the effect that the Japanese used Papuan girls as comfort women. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

The activist is un-named but is stated by Japanese historian Ikuhito Hata that she was a New Guinean activist who came to Japan in summer of 1998.

Civic groups in Papua New Guinea today retain evidence of tens of thousands of cases of Japanese military war crimes, .

Source is found here

By the way, the video has English subtitles. You can skip the video to 1:05 and on 1:32 you can see the former New Guinean comfort women herself said "They have taken many women from the village North Biak ", whole video is basically the reason why many women stay silent and how many women were recruited as comfort women for the Japanese military by local men they were known as Djungke (a term that refers to special helpers of the Japanese military).

Many claims of coverups by Australian government aswell. The Papuan civic group asked Australian government for justice but I don't know if it's ignored or cover up. Like in 2017, it was recently unveiled that the 22 Australian Nurses who were raped but were gagged by the Australian government from telling the truth. Historian Lynette Silver said Sister Bullwinkel (sole survivor) was silent from telling the truth in the tribunal war since 1946.

If his can be edited in the wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangka_Island_massacre so can the Papuan New Guinean figure. New Guinean activist claim 16,116 comfort women, 2,000+ cannibal cases while Civic Papuan group claim Japanese committed tens of thousands of atrocities. While interview from the Papuan New Guinean victim herself said "they have taken many women from the village of North Biak " to serve the Japanese soldiers. Since the figure given by the New Guinean activist is doubted aswell we can edit that in wikipedia too but that does not mean the possibility is zero.Vamlos (talk) 14:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

This is just something I happened to stumble on in passing and comment about -- I don't have expertise in this topic. I'll just comment that "that does not mean the possibility is zero" flouts WP's standards -- see more on those standards at WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:RS. I'll just leave anything further to regular editors of this article unless something more comes up to draw me back in. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 14:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I am being neutral and the sources I post are reliable. It was the reputable Japanese historian Ikuhiko Hata who stated a w Guinean activist came to Japan in the summer of 1998 and revealed figures indicating there had been 2,388 cannibals and 16,161 comfort women in Eastern New Guinea. THE ONLY THING I REGRET is not editing that there was doubt in the figure.Vamlos (talk) 15:03, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

More evidence of New Guinean comfort women being in very large number which would make the New Guinean activist and Papuan Civic groups claim credible. Source is here---> https://icarusfilms.com/if-sens

"During World War II, 140,000 Japanese troops may have died in Papua New Guinea. Only 11,000 returned to Japan. Considered the "Forgotten War," neither the war nor its veterans received public recognition in Japan. "

But SENSO DAUGHTERS (DAUGHTERS OF WAR) investigates another unacknowledged tragedy of that campaign: the army's mistreatment of New Guinean women and "comfort girls," military prostitutes conscripted believing they would clean and cook. Since women, excepting nurses, had no official military status, 90,000 comfort girls were shipped to battle sites as "military commodities," without names or identities, without records to be traced by. "

Here are some several famous historians/authors/teachers review

Highly Recommended!"—Video Rating Guide for Libraries

"SENSO DAUGHTERS reveals a shameful chapter in Japan's military history, and Sekiguchi has risked considerable disapproval in her country by producing such a powerful indictment. Documentary at its best: stark, honest and uncensored."—Anne Markowski, New Directions for Women

"A tour de-force of investigative journalism, a frightening meditation on amnesia and history and a personal historiography in the best tradition of Shoah. In the face of incontrovertible evidence, Japanese soldiers and nurses alike continue to pretend ignorance of the real conditions inside the brothels."—Cineaste

"Chilling! [The film] attains its most subtle brilliance precisely by allowing the New Guineans to speak for themselves."—David Desser, Education About Asia

"Unforgettable! Never sensational or offensive; instead… [the film] uses interviews in which a common human desire for dignity can be seen. Through the contrasting images and voices of the Japanese and Melanesians, these memories become the stuff of history."—David D. Buck, Editor, Journal of Asian Studies

"Excellent! Sekiguchi is undaunted by official evasion and lies, and the (willfully) incomplete memories or outright denials of Japanese veterans. She raises troubling questions about Japan's imperial legacy, the relationship between memory and history, between sexual and cultural colonialism and the role of women."—The Guardian

Best of Category, 1991 San Francisco Film Festival

Best Documentary, 1990 Melbourne Film Festival

Best Documentary, 1990 International Short Film Competition

Best Documentary, 1989 Japanese Catholic Cinema Club

This would make the the New Guinean activist claims and the Civic Papuan groups credible. Aswell as the interview from the Papuan New Guinean victim.Vamlos (talk) 07:33, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

There is no evidence of involvement by Japanese Military in Korea

While Korean hawkish activists and South Korean government never cease accusations against Japan, there is still no evidence to support the forcible abduction of Korean girls to Japanese military brothels during World War II. Thus, the proposition "Korean girls were taken by Korean men and into illegal brothels, which were unauthorized by the Japanese Military" cannot be rejected. We were increasingly confident that the activist organization, KCJR (Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance) is full of fraud and falsified testimonies. While they ascribe all the crimes to Japan, there are no supporting evidences, but are the hawkish women's unreliable testimonies. Analyzing their inconsistencies, most culprits of comfort women issues in Korea should be Koreans.

1. Fathers who sold daughters to brothels against their wills to pay off debts. 2, The culprits who abducted or deceived uneducated Korean girls to send into brothels. 3. The brothel owners who accepted illegal human-trafficking, and possibly paid much less than Japanese Military's standards.

Many Japanese are really frustrated by Korean activists, because they accuse Japan without any evidences, e.g. contracts with a brothel. According to legal documents of the Japanese Military, they contracted with selective brothels and ordered them to follow protocols including; 1. periodical medical checks to prevent sexual diseases, 2. to check identification of prostitutes, and 3. profitable pre-paid wages for the prostitutes.

On the other hand, Korean underground human-traffickers should have extended their activities and repeated illegal businesses. In particular, uneducated Korean girls understood no Japanese, so it is very unlikely that Korean girls had followed Japanese human-traffickers (no Japanese Military men directly recruited such girls).

Even Japan-South Korea bilateral agreement was concluded in 2015, with Japan's payment of $8.3 million (\1 billion) to South Korea, South Korean embezzled $5 million, and the hawkish activists are still filing lawsuits at Korean Courts against Japan, in order to deprive another $3 million reparations. The center of the issue is not the cruelty, but Koreans' fabricating stories to discriminate Japan and deprive money from Japan. The real culprits during World War II must have been mostly Koreans, not even Japanese or Japanese Military.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:268:c1c7:113d:c80e:7958:8ff3:ba6e (talk • contribs) 07:03, July 22, 2021 (UTC)

This is correct and shows how biased this article is at present. The article repeatedly makes the claim that comfort women were forced, were sexual slaves, etc., when there is no evidence that the Japanese military coerced them or forced them. There appears to be no mention of the high pay that the women received for working in the brothels. These biases need to be corrected. All of the allegations of "sexual slavery" are unsupported by corroborated evidence, so the uncertainty on this point needs to be respected.175.177.45.31 (talk) 13:05, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

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BRD discussion re mention of 2021 paper: "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War"

This mention of the paper by @Burtsbeez123 was reverted here by @Binksternet. I note that the characterization of the removed mention of the was sketchy, and only this YouTube video was cited in support. The paper can be seen at Ramseyer, J. Mark (2021). "Contracting for sex in the Pacific War". International Review of Law and Economics. 65 (March). doi:10.1016/j.irle.2020.105971. Considering WP:DUE, it seems to me that the question of whether or not the paper has sufficient weight for mention in this article should be discussed here. Comments? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:16, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

It has already been discussed, with Ramseyer's paper determined to be a hit piece unrelated to actual scholarship. Binksternet (talk) 20:26, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

On the contrary. Ramseyer addressed all of the criticisms in a recent article. As you can see if you read the PDF (and as I noted briefly in a comment a year ago) none of his critics were able to counter any of his actual arguments. Interestingly enough, if you read through each of Ramseyer's articles, as well as those of his critics, you'll notice that the main argument on both sides is exactly the same―namely, that there is "no evidence indicating that the majority of the comfort women had worked voluntarily / involuntarily". This is the strongest point on both sides, and one that both sides implicitly admit.

Ramseyer's articles are not only peer-reviewed, but they are also some of the most neutral and objective sources written on the subject. If you check all the sources cited in the Wikipedia article in its current form, you'll notice that it has been written almost entirely based on a small number of anecdotes. Most of the sources are cases of circular reporting, i.e. they cite one another and cherry-pick evidence to fit a predefined narrative―in this case, the view that comfort women were sex slaves. As has been noted by Sarah Soh and Park Yu-ha, as well as several Korean professors, reality was far more complex. Some comfort women worked voluntarily, others were sold to the brothel owners by parents as a way to settle debts, and still others were tricked into signing the contracts; all of which is very much in line with what we know of historical systems of prostitution. No one claims to know what percentage had been voluntary as opposed to involuntary. All neutral, fact-checked sources agree on this point.

As a reliable peer-reviewed article and as a significant view on the subject, as per WP:SOURCETYPES and WP:NPOV, respectively, Ramseyer's papers should be cited and mentioned in the article. His critics should also be cited, of course, for the sake of neutrality. In this case full censorship violates WP:NPOV, WP:SOURCETYPES and WP:UNDUE, and is thereby not appropriate. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 00:20, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

here is a link to a petition that condemned Ramseyer's publication: http://chwe.net/irle/letter/ Despite being committed to academic freedom, thousands of professors from different academic fields signed the petition, agreeing "that this article goes well beyond mere academic failure or malpractice in its breach of academic standards, integrity, and ethics." — Preceding unsigned comment added by PeoplesSleepingParty (talk • contribs) 19:07, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

This is even worse than the criticisms I was referring to. The petition starts by asserting that Ramseyer attempted to argue that “young women and girls, many in their teens, voluntarily contracted themselves into sex work at 'comfort stations'”. But as anyone can tell by taking a single glance at Ramseyer's paper, not only does he never mention the women working voluntarily (which you can readily check with CTRL+F) he even explicitly points out, multiple times, that Japanese and Korean prostitutes at the time often entered the profession to pay off debts (either their own or their parents'). In today's world, many would define this as debt bondage or "debt slavery".

Those subjected to debt bondage in modern times generally do so because they have no other choice, and, in the case of historical Japanese prostitutes, Ramseyer admits as much on page 5, section 2.4: "when Japanese reformers complained about how women had become prostitutes, they complained about the parents: that parents had effectively sold their daughters into prostitution. They had not wanted to go, some women reported. But their parents had induced them to agree in order to collect the indenture advance". This was true for prostitutes not only in Japan and Korea, and not only before and after WW2, but throughout history.

The very fact that these 'professors' signed the petition without even reading Ramseyer's paper tells us everything we need to know about their credibility. Coming from a scientific field, I know no expert worth their salt would ever put their name on anything of the sort without double-checking its content. The fact that these 'professors' did so without second thought suggests that they have vested interests.

Which is not surprising―as I mentioned above, many historians who have written on the subject have previously simply parroted the claims of old sources from the 1990s without doing any fact-checking or critical analysis of their own, engaging in blatant circular reporting. Now that neutral researchers such as Sarah Soh, Park Yu-ha and Ramseyer have shown that throughout all those years, these historians had neglected to do their job, I can't blame them for attempting to get people to dismiss this newer research in order to protect their careers and reputations.

That said, glancing at the credentials of the signatories, most of them do not seem to be historians at all. Which begs the question, if they did not read Ramseyer's paper, and they are not even experts of the field, why did they sign the petition, and why should anyone care? I don’t believe Wikipedia puts much weight on a layman’s opinion, especially a demonstrably uninformed opinion, as is the case here.

As editors, we should prioritize sources based on their objective reliability. A peer-reviewed source is more credible than a petition is. As such, Ramseyer's paper should be mentioned as a significant minority view as per WP:RS. Bavio the Benighted (talk) 10:04, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2022

The title of this article should be changed to Comfort Women - Sex Slaves or something similar to immediately show that the women involved were forced to have sex WeyBirk (talk) 08:01, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: page move requests should be made at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Happy Editing--IAmChaos 09:43, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem with this is that, if the title was changed as suggested, we would need a different article for those comfort women who worked voluntarily. Which, based on the available evidence, could comprise anywhere between 1%-99% of all comfort women. And since there's no evidence indicating that the majority were forced to work, making the requested change would require removing all content pertaining to comfort women in general (e.g. the number of comfort women). Bavio the Benighted (talk) 15:41, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2022

Remove the sentence "One New Guinean activist estimated 16,161 comfort women but is doubted by Japanese historians.[20][21]"

The prior sentence stating the number is unknown is sufficient. Additionally, any doubt on numbers should be noted only when it is shared by historians outside of Japan. Japanese historians may be subconsciously or consciously biased against belief in the severity of the event and presenting doubt held only by historians in that country is poor scholarship. A minimum evidence of support or doubt from historians outside of Japan should also be presented. 2603:900A:1901:C893:DCB:F27D:C963:5945 (talk) 20:24, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done. Heartmusic678 (talk) 14:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2022

Please change the term "surviving sex slaves" to "surviving women" in the sentence "In 2007, the surviving sex slaves wanted an apology from the Japanese government. Shinzō Abe, the prime minister at the time, stated on March 1, 2007, that there was no evidence that the Japanese government had kept sex slaves, even though the Japanese government had already admitted the use of coercion in 1993. On March 27 the Japanese parliament issued an official apology.[161]"

Using the phrase "sex slaves" in this sentence reduces the women to only that portion of their life and is degrading. 2603:900A:1901:C893:DCB:F27D:C963:5945 (talk) 20:41, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done. Heartmusic678 (talk) 14:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 May 2022

There's a grammar mistake on the outline: "...as a response to wholesale rape of Chinese women by Japanese soliders." Change solider to soldier. Hoofgrit (talk) 21:34, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done; thanks for pointing that out. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:01, 30 May 2022 (UTC)