was a Japanese writer who is known for writing one of the first books on

comfort women Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Born in

Dalian Dalian () is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China. Located on the ...

Kwantung Leased Territory The Kwantung Leased Territory ( ja, 關東州, ''Kantō-shū''; ) was a leased territory of the Empire of Japan in the Liaodong Peninsula from 1905 to 1945. Japan first acquired Kwantung from the Qing Empire in perpetuity in 1895 in the Trea ...

(then part of the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

) he wrote in 1973.

History

As a reporter for

Mainichi Shinbun The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language news website called ''The Mainichi'' (prev ...

(a major newspaper in Japan), Kakou Senda first encountered photographs of comfort women in 1962 while working on ''Nihon no Senreki'', a book that chronicled photographs from

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The photograph had been among a collection of 25,000 censored wartime photographs. The explanations connected with the pictures did not explain who these women were. When Senda pursued further investigation, he learned of the ''jūgun-ianfu'' for the first time, leading him to investigate the comfort system as a whole. Senda faced difficulties in finding people willing to share information regarding the comfort women until he met Aso Tetsuo, a former army doctor. During the war, Aso Tetsuo had examined the women for venereal disease and not surprisingly, proclaimed the young Korean girls to be much healthier than the Japanese prostitutes. Based on his research of soldier-comfort women ratios, Senda estimated that there that number of comfort women was over 100,000. Drawing on interviews with Japanese military veterans, Korean men, and others in addition to relevant publications, Senda published his book in 1973. Through the introduction of a fellow journalist, Senda was able to meet a former comfort woman but when asked the details of her experience, she remained silent. Although his book ''Military Comfort Women'' was a "hidden" best-seller among scholars, it did not gain widespread public attention. Soon after his book was published, it was quickly made into a film by

Toei Company () (also styled TOEI) is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution and video game developer and publishing company. Based in Tokyo, Toei owns and operates thirty-four movie theaters across Japan (all but two of them operated by i ...

. Even the film did not draw much attention to the issue of comfort women. The comfort women issue only gained international attention when

Kim Hak-sun Kim Hak-sun (1924–1997) was a Korean human rights activist who campaigned against Sexual slavery, sex slavery and wartime sexual violence. Kim was one of the victims who had been forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army, Japan ...

came forth with her story in 1991.

Jūgun-ianfu

The term jūgun-ianfu literally means "comfort women who followed or accompanied the troops." Some researchers have claimed that this word only became commonly used after Senda published his book with that title; however, other sources show that women were called jūgun-ianfu during the war. The phrase "comfort women" is derived from this word. Defenders of former comfort women who are seeking retribution from the Japanese government dislike the connotation of the word jūgun-ianfu. Many former comfort women themselves feel that the euphemistic phrase, along with its English counterpart, disguises the truth. The term has become contentious among the public as usage has grown to be common. Various phrases have been suggested, such as "sex slaves" or "victims of forced prostitution."

Selected list of works

*''Military Comfort Women'' (従軍慰安婦 ''Jūgun-ianfu''),

Futabasha is a Japanese publishing company headquartered in Higashigokenchō, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.会社概要
" Futabasha. R ...

(1973). Subtitle was "Accuse of 80000 people, No voice of women" (声なき女"八万人の告発). *''

Military Comfort Women (1974 film) , is a 1974 film, based on Kakou Senda's book of the same title. Plot The film depicts the sad love story of a woman(Akiko) who became a Military Comfort woman. Cast *Yutaka Nakajima * Mako Midori *Hideo Murota * Akira Kume *Nenji Kobayashi ...

'' (従軍慰安婦 ''Jūgun-ianfu''),

(1974)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Senda, Kakou 1924 births 2000 deaths Japanese writers Comfort women Writers from Dalian