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| 2016 film, Spirits Homecoming addresses the issue of Korean comfort women |
In Japanese-occupied territories, the Imperial Japanese often used the native women as sex slaves. In 2000, the BBC estimated that more than 200 000 women were used as "comfort women".
During the Japanese Occupation of Singapore (1942 -1945), the Japanese military used hundreds of mainly Korean – but also Chinese, Indonesian and Malay – women as sex slaves. Japanese women were also brought to Singapore as “hostesses” or prostitutes for high-ranking officers. One of the comfort woman, Kim Bok Dong was brought from her native Korea to serve as a comfort woman in China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia (including Singapore).
In Singapore, Sentosa, Cairnhill Road, Jalan Jurong Kechil, Tanjong Katong Road and Teo Hong Road in Chinatown were believed to be used as "comfort stations" for the activities.
The Imperial Japanese at that time believed that organised prostitution was necessary to keep military morale up, reduce rape (and thus associated diseases) in the military and to prevent leakage of secrets to civilian women. Thus the military would forced or deceived native women to go into the sex slave trade.
As an occupied nation, the natives were usually unable to resist.
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