China Press

Japan denies coercion of 'comfort women'

Park Og-ryon, 87, (front L) and Kim Soon-og, 88, (R), who were forced to become comfort women or sex slaves by Japanese troops during World War Two, chant anti-Japan slogans with nuns at a protest in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul September 6, 2006. [Reuters]

TOKYO -- The Japanese government has found no evidence that the military or the government forced women to work in World War II military brothels, the Cabinet said in a statement to a lawmaker Friday.

...Historians say as many as 200,000 women, most of them Asians, worked in Japanese military brothels across the region in the 1930s and 1940s. Japanese defense documents uncovered in 1992 showed the military had a direct role in running the brothels, which the government had previously denied.

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