Japanese soldiers ran brothels until 1947, investigators say
Mainland lawyers have released the country's first study into the extent of the Japanese military's wartime use of sexual slavery on the mainland in the hope of collecting evidence to strengthen future claims against Tokyo.
'We want to examine this segment of history from a lawyer's point of view, and gain a comprehensive understanding that goes beyond individual cases,' said Kang Jian, a lawyer involved in several suits brought by the 'comfort women' against the Japanese government since 1995.
The study was conducted by an investigative committee created last year by the government-backed All China Lawyers Association and the China Legal Aid Foundation.
It concluded that Japanese troops forced women into sexual slavery on the mainland for at least 16 years, longer than the official duration of the war between the countries, which lasted from 1931 until 1945.
Ms Kang and her team visited Shanxi, Hainan, Yunnan, Liaoning and Jilin during the first phase of the five-year study. They found 17 women - 16 in Shanxi and one in Hainan - who said they had been forced into sexual slavery and had not yet filed a claim or whose cases had not been reported in the media.
Fourteen of them were younger than 18 years old when they were forced to work as sex slaves. The oldest was 21 years old at the time, while the youngest was 12.