Establishment of the comfort women system Japanese military prostitution Military correspondence of the Imperial Japanese Army shows that the aim of facilitating comfort stations was the prevention of rape crimes committed by Japanese army personnel and thus preventing the rise of hostility among people in occupied areas.
According to Japanese historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi , however, the comfort stations did not solve, but aggravated the first two problems. Yoshimi has asserted, "The Japanese Imperial Army feared most that the simmering discontentment of the soldiers could explode into a riot and revolt. That is why it provided women". Earlier comfort women were Japanese prostitutes who volunteered for such service. However, as Japan continued military expansion, the military found itself short of Japanese volunteers, and turned to the local population to abduct or coerce women into serving in these stations.
In urban areas, conventional advertising through middlemen was used alongside kidnapping. Middlemen advertised in newspapers circulating in Japan and the Japanese colonies of Korea , Taiwan, Manchukuo , and China. These sources soon dried up, especially from Japan.
An existing system of licensed prostitution within Korea made it easy for Japan to recruit females in large numbers. This might have provided them with some insight into the nature of Japanese, as opposed to British, colonial rule, as well what might be in store for their sisters and daughters. The military often directly demanded that local leaders procure women for the brothels along the front lines, especially in the countryside where middlemen were rare.
When the locals were considered hostile in China, Japanese soldiers carried out the "Three Alls Policy" "kill all, burn all, loot all" which included indiscriminately kidnapping and raping local civilians. These documents were initially made public at the war crimes trial. In one of these, a lieutenant is quoted as confessing to having organized a brothel and having used it himself. Another source refers to Tokkeitai members having arrested women on the streets and putting them in brothels after enforced medical examinations.
