Monday, 1 March 2021, 8:42 am
In his recent paper entitled Contracting for Sex in the
Pacific War and accompanying editorial “Recovering the
Truth about the Comfort Women”, Professor J. Mark
Ramseyer, the Mitsubishi Professor of Japanese Legal Studies
at Harvard Law School describes the forced sexual slavery
organized by Japan during World War II as a consenting,
contractual process.
Ramseyer’s arguments are factually
inaccurate and misleading. He also ignores expansive
scholarship done by international organizations, such as the
United Nations and Amnesty International, which has
conclusively found that the “comfort women” were
coerced, kidnapped, or forced by the Japanese government.
After its independent inquiry, the Japanese government