Slavery in Japan

The export of a slave from Japan is recorded in the 3rd century Chinese historical record Wajinden,{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2385316 | jstor=2385316 | title=In Pursuit of Himiko. Postwar Archaeology and the Location of Yamatai | last1=Edwards | first1=Walter | journal=Monumenta Nipponica | date=1996 | volume=51 | issue=1 | pages=53–79 | doi=10.2307/2385316 | url-access=subscription }} but it is unclear what system was involved, and whether this was a common practice at that time. These slaves were called seikō ({{lang|ja|生口}} "living mouth").

In the 8th century, slaves were called Nuhi (奴婢) and laws were issued under the legal codes of the Nara and Heian periods, called Ritsuryōsei (律令制). These slaves tended farms and worked around houses. Information on the slave population is questionable, but the proportion of slaves is estimated to have been around 5% of the population.

Slavery persisted into the Sengoku period (1467–1615) even though the attitude that slavery was anachronistic seems to have become widespread among elites.Thomas Nelson, "Slavery in Medieval Japan", Monumenta Nipponica 2004 59(4): 463–492 In 1590, slavery was officially banned under Toyotomi Hideyoshi; but forms of contract and indentured labor persisted alongside the period penal codes' forced labor. Somewhat later, the Edo period penal laws prescribed "non-free labor" for the immediate family of executed criminals in Article 17 of the Gotōke reijō (Tokugawa House Laws), but the practice never became common. The 1711 Gotōke reijō was compiled from over 600 statutes promulgated between 1597 and 1696.Lewis, James Bryant. (2003). [https://books.google.com/books?id=0YIbNlliRswC&dq=hideyoshi+slavery&pg=PA31 Frontier Contact Between Choson Korea and Tokugawa Japan, p. 31]–32.

During the Sengoku period, Japanese Daimyos and merchants often sold off prisoners of battle into slavery.

In 1594, after the second invasion of Joseon, Toyotomi Hideyoshi determined to conquer Korea, was repelled by the Korean forces allied to the Ming Chinese. What began as an assault turned into a grueling, village-by-village struggle, with momentum shifting between both sides. It soon became clear that Japan would not succeed in conquering Korea. Rather than let their efforts go to waste, the Japanese turned to capturing and enslaving Koreans. Despite Korea resisting both invasions, greatly accredited to Admiral Yi Sun-shin and his victory in the Battle of Hansan Island, Japan did not emerge from the invasions empty-handed. The Japanese captured tens of thousands of Korean farmers and artisans, bringing them back to Japan for enslavement. An estimate of enslaved Koreans taken back to Japan range from 50,000 to 200,000, consisting of farmers, artisans and blacksmiths.{{cite web | url=https://www.thoughtco.com/ceramic-wars-hideyoshis-japan-kidnaps-koreans-195725 | title=The Ceramic Wars: Japan Kidnaps Korean Artisans }}

After the Portuguese first made contact with Japan in 1543, a large-scale slave trade developed in which Portuguese purchased Japanese as slaves in Japan and sold them to various locations overseas, mostly in Portuguese-colonized regions of Asia such as Goa but including Brazil and Portugal itself, until it was formally outlawed in 1595. Many documents mention the large slave trade along with protests against the enslavement of Japanese. Although the actual number of slaves is debated, the proportions on the number of slaves tends to be exaggerated by some Japanese historians.In the Name of God: The Making of Global Christianity

By Edmondo F. Lupieri, James Hooten, Amanda Kunder [https://books.google.com/books?id=KR5H1Jj9M6EC&dq=The+Japanese+propaganda+accused+them+of+buying+and+selling+and+haggling+anything%2C+including+slaves.+They+were+especially+accused+of+handling+an+enormous+number+of+Japanese+young+girls%2C+and+selling+them+overseas%2C+in+foreign&pg=PA190] At least several hundred Japanese people were sold; some of them were prisoners of war sold by rival clans, others were sold by their feudal lords, and others were sold by their families to escape poverty.{{cite web|url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/05/26/books/book-reviews/the-rarely-if-ever-told-story-of-japanese-sold-as-slaves-by-portuguese-traders/|date=2013-05-26|first=Michael|last=Hoffman|title=The rarely, if ever, told story of Japanese sold as slaves by Portuguese traders|work=The Japan Times|url-status=live|access-date=2021-07-04|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210705011354/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/05/26/books/book-reviews/the-rarely-if-ever-told-story-of-japanese-sold-as-slaves-by-portuguese-traders/|archive-date=2021-07-05}} The Japanese slaves are believed to be the first of their nation to end up in Europe, and the Portuguese purchased a number of Japanese slave women to bring to Portugal for sexual purposes, as noted by the Church in 1555. Sebastian of Portugal feared that this was having a negative effect on Catholic proselytization since the slave trade in Japanese was growing to larger proportions, so he commanded that it be banned in 1571.{{cite journal|jstor=25066328|title=Monumenta Nipponica (Slavery in Medieval Japan)|journal=Monumenta Nipponica|last=Nelson|first=Thomas|volume=59|pages=463–492|number=4|date=Winter 2004|publisher=Sophia University.}}{{cite book|publisher=Sophia University (Jōchi Daigaku)|year=2004|page=463|title=Monumenta Nipponica: Studies on Japanese Culture, Past and Present, Volume 59, Issues 3-4}} However, the ban failed to prevent Portuguese merchants from buying Japanese slaves and the trade continued into the late 16th century.{{Cite thesis|last=Ehalt|first=Rumolo|date=2018|title=Jesuits and the Problem of Slavery in Early Modern Japan|url=https://www.academia.edu/36957684|type=PhD|publisher=Tokyo University of Foreign Studies|access-date=6 July 2021}}

Japanese slave women were sometimes sold as concubines to Asian lascar, along with their European counterparts serving on Portuguese ships trading in Japan, mentioned by Luis de Cerqueira, a Portuguese Jesuit, in a 1598 document.{{cite book|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4z_JJfG-hyYC&q=japanese+slaves+portuguese&pg=PA408|page=408|title=Race, Ethnicity and Migration in Modern Japan: Imagined and imaginary minorities|isbn=0415208572|editor=Michael Weiner|edition=illustrated|access-date=2014-02-02}} Japanese slaves were brought by the Portuguese to Macau, where some of them not only ended up being bought by the Portuguese, but as slaves to other slaves, with the Portuguese owning Malay and African slaves, who in turn owned Japanese slaves of their own.{{cite book|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2005|url=https://archive.org/details/africanaencyclop0004unse|url-access=registration|quote=japanese slaves portuguese.|page=[https://archive.org/details/africanaencyclop0004unse/page/479 479]|title=Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience|isbn=0195170555|editor1=Kwame Anthony Appiah |editor2=Henry Louis Gates Jr.|edition=illustrated|access-date=2014-02-02}}{{cite book|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2010|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A0XNvklcqbwC&q=japanese+slaves+portuguese&pg=PA187|page=187|title=Encyclopedia of Africa, Volume 1|isbn=978-0195337709|editor1=Anthony Appiah |editor2=Henry Louis Gates|edition=illustrated|access-date=2014-02-02}}

When Japan invaded Joseon, Korea in 1592, the Japanese abducted huge numbers of Koreans and sold them into slavery. Hideyoshi, despite enslaving Korean slaves for himself, was bothered that his own people were being sold into slavery on Kyushu, that he wrote a letter to Jesuit Vice-Provincial Gaspar Coelho on 24 July 1587 to demand the Portuguese, Siamese (Thai), and Cambodians stop purchasing Japanese and return Japanese slaves who ended up as far as India.{{cite book|publisher=Sophia University (Jōchi Daigaku )|year=2004|page=465|title=Monumenta Nipponica}}{{cite book|publisher=Columbia University Press|year=2013|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lani3dFCC9UC&q=Hideyoshi+korean+portuguese+slaves&pg=PA144|page=144|title=Religion in Japanese History|isbn=978-0231515092|author=Joseph Mitsuo Kitagawa|edition=illustrated, reprint|access-date=2014-02-02}}{{cite book|publisher=Routledge|year=2013|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J0KvyZp9VKAC&q=japanese+slaves+portuguese&pg=PA37|page=37|title=Nature and Origins of Japanese Imperialism|isbn=978-1134918430|author=Donald Calman|access-date=2014-02-02}} Hideyoshi blamed the Portuguese for the trade. The Jesuits, answering for Portuguese behavior in Japan, stated "(we buy Japanese slaves) because the Japanese sell them". After the raids in Korea, the Japanese kidnapped Koreans en masse and sold them into the slave market. In a Jesuit statement released in 1598, when they excommunicated merchants who engaged in slave trade in Japan, the situation was described as follows: "Innumerable Joseon subjects (Koreans) are being abducted and sold off at cheap prices (by the Japanese)".{{cite web | url=https://researchmap.jp/read0045276 | title=藤木 久志 (Hisashi Fujiki) - マイポータル - researchmap }}

Some Korean slaves were bought by the Portuguese and brought back to Portugal from Japan, where they had been among the tens of thousands of Korean prisoners of war transported to Japan during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98).{{cite book|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003|url=https://archive.org/details/specterofgenocid00robe|url-access=registration|quote=Hideyoshi korean slaves guns silk.|page=[https://archive.org/details/specterofgenocid00robe/page/277 277]|title=The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective|isbn=0521527503|editor1=Robert Gellately |editor2=Ben Kiernan|edition=reprint|access-date=2014-02-02}}{{cite book|publisher=Harvard University, Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies|year=2001|page=18|title=Reflections on Modern Japanese History in the Context of the Concept of "genocide"|author=Gavan McCormack|others=Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies|issue=Issue 2001, Part 1 of Occasional papers in Japanese studies}} Although Hideyoshi expressed his indignation and outrage at the Portuguese trade in Japanese slaves, he himself was engaging in a mass slave trade of Korean prisoners of war in Japan.{{cite book|publisher=Routledge|year=2002|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FliQAgAAQBAJ&q=Hideyoshi+korean+slaves&pg=PA170|page=170|title=Tanegashima - The Arrival of Europe in Japan|isbn=1135788715|author=Olof G. Lidin|access-date=2014-02-02}}{{cite book|publisher=University of California Press|year=2012|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6yjTKhcy0jYC&q=Hideyoshi+korean+portuguese+slaves&pg=PT60|volume=21 of Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes|title=Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan|isbn=978-0520952386|author=Amy Stanley|others=Matthew H. Sommer|access-date=2014-02-02}}

Filippo Sassetti saw some Chinese and Japanese slaves in Lisbon among the large slave community in 1578, although most of the slaves were black.{{cite book|publisher=Penguin Books|year=1985|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmauWWluaqcC&q=sassetti+scattering+chinese+slaves|quote=countryside.16 Slaves were everywhere in Lisbon, according to the Florentine merchant Filippo Sassetti, who was also living in the city during 1578. Black slaves were the most numerous, but there were also a scattering of Chinese |page=208|title=The memory palace of Matteo Ricci|author=Jonathan D. Spence|isbn=0140080988|edition=illustrated, reprint|access-date=2012-05-05}}{{cite book|language=pt|publisher=UNICAMP. Universidade Estadual de Campinas|year=1999|quote=Idéias e costumes da China podem ter-nos chegado também através de escravos chineses, de uns poucos dos quais sabe-se da presença no Brasil de começos do Setecentos.17 Mas não deve ter sido através desses raros infelizes que a influência chinesa nos atingiu, mesmo porque escravos chineses (e também japoneses) já existiam aos montes em Lisboa por volta de 1578, quando Filippo Sassetti visitou a cidade,18 apenas suplantados em número pelos africanos. Parece aliás que aos últimos cabia o trabalho pesado, ficando reservadas aos chins tarefas e funções mais amenas, inclusive a de em certos casos secretariar autoridades civis, religiosas e militares. |page=19|title=A China no Brasil: influências, marcas, ecos e sobrevivências chinesas na sociedade e na arte brasileiras|author=José Roberto Teixeira Leite|isbn=8526804367}}{{cite book|publisher=Himalaya Pub. House|year=1992|quote=ing Chinese as slaves, since they are found to be very loyal, intelligent and hard working' . . . their culinary bent was also evidently appreciated. The Florentine traveller Fillippo Sassetti, recording his impressions of Lisbon's enormous slave population circa 1580, states that the majority of the Chinese there were employed as cooks. |page=18|title=Slavery in Portuguese India, 1510-1842|author=Jeanette Pinto}}{{cite book|publisher=2, illustrated, reprint|year=1968|quote=be very loyal, intelligent, and hard-working. Their culinary bent (not for nothing is Chinese cooking regarded as the Asiatic equivalent to French cooking in Europe) was evidently appreciated. The Florentine traveller Filipe Sassetti recording his impressions of Lisbon's enormous slave population circa 1580, states that the majority of the Chinese there were employed as cooks. Dr. John Fryer, who gives us an interesting ... |page=225|title=Fidalgos in the Far East 1550-1770|author=Charles Ralph Boxer|edition=2, illustrated, reprint}}{{cite book|publisher=UNICAMP. Universidade Estadual de Campinas|year=1999|language=pt|page=19|title=A China No Brasil: Influencias, Marcas, Ecos E Sobrevivencias Chinesas Na Sociedade E Na Arte Brasileiras|isbn=8526804367|author=José Roberto Teixeira Leite}}

The Portuguese "highly regarded" Asian slaves like Chinese and Japanese.{{cite book|publisher=Macmillan Reference USA, Simon & Schuster Macmillan|year=1998|page=[https://archive.org/details/macmillanencyclo00paul_0/page/737 737]|title=Macmillan encyclopedia of world slavery, Volume 2|isbn=0028647815|author=Paul Finkelman|editor=Paul Finkelman, Joseph Calder Miller|url=https://archive.org/details/macmillanencyclo00paul_0/page/737}} The Portuguese attributed qualities like intelligence and industriousness to Chinese and Japanese slaves which is why they favoured them.{{cite book|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|year=2012|volume=25 of 3: Works, Hakluyt Society Hakluyt Society|title=Japanese Travellers in Sixteenth-century Europe: A Dialogue Concerning the Mission of the Japanese Ambassadors to the Roman Curia (1590)|isbn=978-1409472230|author=Duarte de Sande|editor=Derek Massarella|issue=Issue 25 of Works issued by the Hakluyt Society|issn=0072-9396}}{{cite book|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1982|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g0TCPWGGVqgC&pg=PA168|volume=25 of 3: Works, Hakluyt Society Hakluyt Society|page=168|title=A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441-1555|isbn=0521231507|author=A. C. de C. M. Saunders|edition=illustrated|access-date=2014-02-02}}{{cite book|publisher=Himalaya Pub. House|year=1992|page=18|title=Slavery in Portuguese India, 1510-1842|author=Jeanette Pinto}}{{cite book|publisher=Oxford U.P.|year=1968|page=[https://archive.org/details/fidalgosinfareas0000boxe/page/225 225]|title=Fidalgos in the Far East 1550-1770|url=https://archive.org/details/fidalgosinfareas0000boxe|url-access=registration|author=Charles Ralph Boxer|isbn=978-0-19-638074-2|edition=2, illustrated, reprint}}

In 1595, a law was passed by Portugal banning the selling and buying of Chinese and Japanese slaves,{{citation|title=Legacies of slavery: comparative perspectives|first=Maria Suzette Fernandes|last=Dias|year=2007|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-84718-111-4|page=71}} but forms of contract and indentured labor persisted alongside the period penal codes' forced labor. Somewhat later, the Edo period penal laws prescribed "non-free labor" for the immediate family of executed criminals in Article 17 of the Gotōke reijō (Tokugawa House Laws), but the practice never became common. The 1711 Gotōke reijō was compiled from over 600 statutes promulgated between 1597 and 1696.Lewis, James Bryant. (2003). [https://books.google.com/books?id=0YIbNlliRswC&dq=hideyoshi+slavery&pg=PA31 Frontier Contact Between Choson Korea and Tokugawa Japan, p. 31]-32.

Karayuki-san, literally meaning "Ms. Gone Abroad" were Japanese women who traveled to or were trafficked to East Asia, Southeast Asia, Manchuria, Siberia and as far as San Francisco in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century to work as prostitutes, courtesans and geisha.{{cite news |author=来源：人民网-国家人文历史|date=2013-07-10 |title=日本性宽容："南洋姐"输出数十万 |url=http://news.takungpao.com/history/story/2013-07/1748611.html |newspaper=Ta Kung Pao 大公报 }} In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a network of Japanese prostitutes being trafficked across Asia, in countries such as China, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore and India, in what was then known as the 'Yellow Slave Traffic'.{{sfn|Fischer-Tiné|2003|pp=163–90}}

{{Main|Japanese war crimes}}

In the first half of the Shōwa era, as the Empire of Japan annexed Asian countries, from the late 19th century onwards, archaic institutions including slavery were abolished in those countries. However, during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, the Japanese military used millions of civilians and prisoners of war as forced labor, on projects such as the Burma Railway.

According to a joint study by historians including Zhifen Ju, Mitsuyoshi Himeta, Toru Kubo and Mark Peattie, more than 10 million Chinese civilians were mobilized by the Kōa-in (East Asia Development Board) for forced labour.Zhifen Ju, "Japan's Atrocities of Conscripting and Abusing North China Draftees after the Outbreak of the Pacific War", Joint study of the Sino-Japanese war, 2002, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/sino-japanese/minutes_2002.htm According to the Japanese military's own record, nearly 25% of 140,000 Allied POWs died while interned in Japanese prison camps where they were forced to work (U.S. POWs died at a rate of 27%).{{cite web|url=http://www.japantoday.com/jp/book/115|title=Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion|access-date=15 February 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080207230309/http://www.japantoday.com/jp/book/115|archive-date=7 February 2008}}{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bataan/peopleevents/e_atrocities.html|title=American Experience - Bataan Rescue - People & Events|website=PBS |access-date=15 February 2016|archive-date=27 July 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030727223501/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bataan/peopleevents/e_atrocities.html|url-status=dead}} More than 100,000 civilians and POWs died in the construction of the Burma Railway.{{cite web|url=http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/links.html|title=links for research, Allied POWs under the Japanese|access-date=15 February 2016}} The U.S. Library of Congress estimates that in Java, between 4 and 10 million romusha (Japanese: "manual laborer"), were forced to work by the Japanese military.[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+id0029) Library of Congress, 1992, "Indonesia: World War II and the Struggle For Independence, 1942-50; The Japanese Occupation, 1942-45"] Access date: February 9, 2007. About 270,000 of these Javanese laborers were sent to the Outer Islands and other Japanese-held areas in South East Asia. Only 52,000 were repatriated to Java.{{cite book|first1=William C.|last1=Younce|title=Indonesia: Issues, Historical Background and Bibliography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H6O0K65WqQ8C|publisher=Nova Publishers|date=2001|isbn=978-1-59033-249-8|via=Google Books|page=51}}

During World War II the Japanese empire used various types of foreign labor from its colonies, Korea and Taiwan. Japan mobilized its colonial labor within the same legal framework that was applied to the Japanese. There were different procedures for mobilizing labor. The method used first, in 1939 was the recruitment by private companies under government supervision. In 1942 it was introduced the official mediation method, where the government was more directly involved. The outright conscription was applied from 1944 to 1945.{{Cite web|last=Nakano|first=Yoichi|date=1997|title=Japan's Wartime Use of Colonial Labor: Taiwan and Korea (1937-1945)|url=https://libcom.org/files/Japans%20Wartime%20Use%20of%20Colonial%20Labour.pdf}}

According to the Korean historians, approximately 670,000 Koreans, were conscripted into labor from 1944 to 1945 by the National Mobilization Law.brackman,87,253n "according to Korean historians. of 670,000 brought to Japan."[http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB3.1.GIF Data on Japanese Democide of WWII, Lines 118-123] About 670,000 of them were taken to Japan, where about 60,000 died between 1939 and 1945 due mostly to exhaustion or poor working conditions.{{cite web|url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM|title=STATISTICS OF JAPANESE GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER|access-date=15 February 2016}} Many of those taken to Karafuto Prefecture (modern-day Sakhalin) were trapped there at the end of the war, stripped of their nationality and denied repatriation by Japan; they became known as the Sakhalin Koreans.{{cite news|last=Lankov|first=Andrei|publisher=The Korea Times|date=2006-01-05|access-date=2006-11-26|title=Stateless in Sakhalin|url=http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200601/kt2006010516434554130.htm|archive-date=2006-02-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060221144952/http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/opinion/200601/kt2006010516434554130.htm|url-status=dead}} The total deaths of Korean forced laborers in Korea and Manchuria for those years is estimated to be between 270,000 and 810,000.{{cite book | first=R. J. | last=Rummel | title=Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1990 | publisher=Lit Verlag | year=1999 | isbn=3-8258-4010-7}}

Available online: {{cite web | title=Statistics of Democide: Chapter 3 - Statistics Of Japanese Democide Estimates, Calculations, And Sources | work=Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War | url=http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM | access-date=2006-03-01}}

Since the end of the Second World War, numerous people have filed lawsuits against the state and/or private companies in Japan, seeking compensation based on suffering as the result of forced labor. The plaintiffs had encountered many legal barriers to be awarded damages, including: sovereign immunity; statutes of limitations; and waiver of claims under the San Francisco Peace Treaty.{{Cite web|last=LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, JAPAN|date=September 2008|title=Japan: WWII POW and Forced Labor Compensation Cases|website=Library of Congress |url=https://www.loc.gov/law/help/pow-compensation/Japan-pow-compensation.pdf}}

{{Main|Comfort women}}

According to the United States House of Representatives House Resolution 121, as many as 200,000 "comfort women" {{cite news |title=U.S. Congress backs off rebuking wartime Japan - Americas - International Herald Tribune (Published 2006) |work=The New York Times |date=15 October 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211228233507/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/world/americas/15iht-rebuke.3161412.html |archive-date=2021-12-28 |url-status=live |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/world/americas/15iht-rebuke.3161412.html |last1=Bender |first1=Bryan }} mostly from Korea and China, and some other countries and territories such as the Philippines, Taiwan,French Indochina (Vietnam),Burma, the Dutch East Indies, Netherlands,{{cite web|url=http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200703/200703190023.html|title=The Chosun Ilbo (English Edition): Daily News from Korea|access-date=15 February 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080605004220/http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200703/200703190023.html|archive-date=5 June 2008}} and Australia{{cite web|url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/abe-ignores-evidence-say-australias-comfort-women/2007/03/02/1172338881441.html|title=Abe ignores evidence, say Australia's 'comfort women'|date=3 March 2007|access-date=15 February 2016}} were forced into sexual slavery during World War II to satisfy Japanese Imperial Army and Navy members. Many of these women — particularly the Dutch and Australian women — were also used for hard physical labour, forced to work arduous tasks in the fields and roads such as digging graves, building roads and hoeing hard soil, in hellish heat while on starvation rations. While apologies have been handed out by the Japanese government and government politicians, including the Asian Women's fund, which grants donated financial compensations to former comfort women,{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/world/asia/25japan.html|title=Japan's 'Atonement' to Former Sex Slaves Stirs Anger|date=25 April 2007|work=The New York Times|access-date=15 February 2016}} the Japanese government has also worked to downplay its use of comfort women in recent times, claiming that all compensations for its war conduct were resolved with post-war treaties such as the Treaty of San Francisco, and, for example, asking the mayor of Palisades Park, New Jersey to take down a memorial in memory of the women.{{cite web|url=http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/05/world/asia/japan-comfort-women/index.html|title=Forgotten faces: Japan's comfort women|author=Kyung Lah, CNN|date=6 June 2012|work=CNN|access-date=15 February 2016}}

{{Main article|Human trafficking in Japan|Sex trafficking in Japan}}

In 2018, South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, owed compensation to Korean workers for forced labor during the Japanese colonial period. However, a later decision by the Seoul Central District Court created confusion by dismissing a case against Japanese firms, citing the 1965 Agreement on the Settlement of Problems concerning Property and Claims and on Economic Cooperation, which Japan argues settled the matter of compensation. This legal ambiguity has led to diplomatic tensions, affecting trade and security cooperation between the two countries.{{Cite web |title=After the Latest Forced Labor Court Ruling, Where Do Japan-South Korea Relations Stand? |url=https://thediplomat.com/2021/06/after-the-latest-forced-labor-court-ruling-where-do-japan-south-korea-relations-stand/ |access-date=2024-02-29 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US}}

In 2021, UNESCO reprimanded Japan for insufficient information about the history of forced labor at its industrial heritage sites, including Hashima Island (also known as "Battleship Island"), which is part of the Sites of Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution. UNESCO highlighted Japan's failure to adequately acknowledge the use of Korean forced labor at these sites during World War II. Despite being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Hashima Island and other locations like the Miike coal mine have a history of forced labor, including Korean laborers and, before that, convict labor.{{Cite web |date=2021-08-21 |title=Japan's 'Battleship Island' hides history of wartime forced labor |url=https://globalvoices.org/2021/08/21/japans-battleship-island-hides-history-of-wartime-forced-labor/ |access-date=2024-02-29 |website=Global Voices |language=en}}{{better source needed|date=February 2024}}

{{Portal|Japan}}

• Karayuki-san
• History of slavery in Asia
• Slavery in China
• Slavery in Korea

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{cite journal |last1=Fischer-Tiné |first1=Harald |title='White women degrading themselves to the lowest depths' : European networks of prostitution and colonial anxieties in British India and Ceylon ca. 1880–1914 |journal=The Indian Economic & Social History Review |date=June 2003 |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=163–190 |doi=10.1177/001946460304000202 |s2cid=146273713 |language=en |issn=0019-4646}}

{{Asia topic|Slavery in}}

Category:Social history of Japan

Category:Military history of Japan during World War II

Category:Second Sino-Japanese War crimes

Category:War crimes in Japan

Category:Society of Japan

Category:Japanese war crimes