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Play by: Hansol Jung
Directed by: Eunbi Lee
Dramaturgy by: Minjoo Kim
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Northwestern University,
November 21-23, 2025
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This play moves around three different timelines - 1944, 1950, and 1975 - which mark some of the key moments in 20th-century Korean history. Here are the important historical events that would be helpful to know before watching the performance!
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1944-1945
Japanese Military Sexual Slavery (1932-1945)
WWII Burma Campaign (1942-1945)
1950
1975
Student Democratic Movement in the 70s
Soon-duk Kim, Taken Away, 1995 (Art by “comfort women” survivor) Source: https://calhum.org/event/los-angeles-exhibit-comfort-women-then-and-now/
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It is proper to put quotation marks around “comfort women” and “comfort stations” to indicate they are euphemisms. Additionally, the term “comfort women” is often used as a descriptor, referring to “comfort women” victims or “comfort women” survivors. While “comfort women” is a historically significant and globally legible term, the survivors prefer to be called grandmothers in their native languages. For example, "Halmoni" means "grandmother” in Korean.
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The term “comfort women” is a euphemism for the girls and women trafficked under the Japanese military sexual slavery system between 1932 and 1945. Around 200,000 women were forced to work in government-sponsored “comfort stations.” According to reports by the Korean government, the registered victims ranged from 11 to 27 years old. Some were recruited through false advertisements promising them work, but the majority were kidnapped from the streets or violently coerced. Most victims were Korean and Chinese, but victims came from all over the Japanese colonies in East and Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Indonesia, the former Dutch colonies, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, East Timor, and others. They endured brutal rapes day and night, and even during menstruation, pregnancy, or illness. Moreover, the women could not leave the “comfort stations,” suffered from poor living conditions, and were often violently tortured, even killed. Japanese records describe “comfort women” as “gifts from the Emperor” and dehumanize them by calling them “sanitary public bathrooms.”
Map of “comfort stations” of the Japanese military Source: Museum of Social Justice; originally from Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM)
Although wartime sexual violence has regrettably been prevalent throughout the history of armed conflicts, the “comfort system” is distinct from other forms of militarized sexual violence due to its institutionalized nature and the ethnic diversity of victims. After the Shanghai Incident in 1932, the Japanese military established “comfort stations” to control the rise in rape by Japanese soldiers, which was fueling anti-Japanese sentiment in its colonies. Furthermore, this system was intended to “improve army morale” and control the spread of venereal diseases. All “comfort stations” were strictly controlled and regulated by the Japanese military.
Japanese soldiers waiting in line at a comfort station. Source: Digital Museum: The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women’s Fund https://www.awf.or.jp/e1/facts-12.html
To prevent Japanese soldiers from contracting STIs, “comfort women” victims were subjected to regular medical examinations, which many found extremely degrading and humiliating. Moreover, they were injected with toxic Salvarsan shots (known as No. 606 injections) not only to treat venereal diseases, but also to deter pregnancy or induce abortion, which ended up sterilizing many women.