Slavery+in+Japan

 Slavery in Japan was, for most of its history, indigenous, since the export and import of slaves was restricted by Japan being a group of islands. Koreans were shipped to Japan as slaves during the Japanese invasions of Korea during the 16th century. The export of a slave from Japan is recorded in 3rd century Chinese document. The slaves during this century were called  Seiko “living mouth”. In the 8th century the slaves were called nuhi, also a series of laws on slavery was issued. Out of a population of 190,000, around 2,000 were slaves and the proportion is believed to have been even higher in western Japan. In the late 16th century Japan, slavery was officially banned. But forms of contract and indentured labor persisted alongside the period penal codes which was called forced labor. In the late 19th century, Japan quickly and temporarily reestablished slavery for their army. The Japanese military used millions of civilians and prisoners of war as forced labor to join their army and if they weren’t in the army the slaves worked in the armory to replenish their ammunition. They order all unmarried girls to work in Japanese military factories. They had a system of pay-to- rape centers for the younger girls that they had kidnapped. Most of the girls that they had kidnapped were from North Korea. They were responsible for breaking human rights and humanitarian law. “Comfort women” was the term that they had used for sex slaves during World War II. When Japan and South Korea had a little dispute, South Korea gave Japan their women to use as slaves in any manner in exchange for peace, but the south Korean President wanted their women back when they founded out that the women was being mistreated too badly. About 670,000 women were taken from Korea to Japan, where about 60,000 died between 1939 and 1945 due mostly to exhaustion or poor working conditions. Most of the deaths of women slaves in Japan are over 50 thousand and only a few survived to live, but were severely beaten and raped. An estimated 100,000 to 200,000 women were tricked or forced to serve as sexual slaves for months or years by the Japanese military. More than 80 percent of women were believed Korean. Many of the rest were Chinese, Philippines, Indonesians, Taiwanese and Burmese whose country was under the Japanese occupation. Small number of Dutch women and Japanese women were also enslaved. Many were abducted by Japanese police. The first “comfort station” was established in Shanghai in 1932 and Korean women from in the Korean mining community in Japan were victimized.

 Seiko- 3rd century term for sex slaves

 nuhi- 8th century term for sex slaves