2008-05-11
■ Hicks, pp.228-230 
The South Korean government's report
The South Korean government's report appeared on 31 July 1992, a couple of weeks after the Japanese report. Its title was 'Interim Report of the Fact-Finding Investigation on Military Comfort Women under Japanese Imperialism', in the name of the Working Group on the Voluntary Service Corps Problem. It consisted of a thorough survey of the contents of the Japanese government's report, together with the United States Army reports, and summaries of testimony received through the Victim Report Centres set up to collect information in two Korean cities. These, however, were kept anonymous, and being of the same general character as earlier case histories, did not add great deal of substance. There was no reference to any other documentation except for school registers recording recruitment to the Voluntary Labour Service Corps. The Education Ministry had 245 records of recruitment for the Corps, one from a high school and the rest from primary school.
(snip)
The Victim Report Centres functioned from 25 February to 25 June 1992. They revealed a total of 392 cases, 235 on Labour Service, of which 139 victims still survived. There were 155 on comfort women, of whom 74 were still alive. The report stressed the need to distinguish between the two categories and stated that Labour Service women rarely became comfort women. The Japanese had used the blanket term Voluntary Service Corps to 'obscure the anti-civilised nature of their recruitment methods', and the terminology had remained confusing in Korea.
The report then went on to criticise the Japanese report as lacking comprehensive coverage in such areas as methods of setting up comfort stations; their locations and number; recruitment methods; living conditions; and rates and conditions of payment. The South Korean Foreign Ministry had urged continued investigation and a decision on the resolution of the issue. An historical survey followed, using the better-known publications, from the Siberian expedition, the Shanghai situation in 1932 and 1938, the major recruitment drive in Manchuria, and so on, down to Yoshida's account. It traced the main phases of professional prostitution, deception and intimidation, to outright force. The report correctly identified the Armed Forces' logistics division as the organisational basis of the comfort system. The report also contained brief summaries of thirteen representative cases, all anonymous.
(emphasis added)
George Hicks, "The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War", W. W. Norton & Company, 1995, pp.228-230.
