Women’s rights are getting “naked” during the war, as well as the screens falls down, the true situation for women and the true attitude to them is opened. Women in all epochs that we know looked at men as compatriots, husbands and relatives, because women practically made men. And this is the greatest women’s delusion. Men have never looked at women as companions, sisters, wives, daughters, and mothers. Man has never considered a woman as a human. It is especially expressed during the war.

Business of selling women’s bodies is rising during the war: plenty of women are in distressful situation, beneficial for rapists and souteneurs, who catch women refugees and entrap them into sexual slavery. Soldier invaders rape and kill girls and women; female soldiers, who fight side by side with male soldiers, don’t know, what to do at nights, because their «friends» rape them. Female captives, unlike the male ones, are not only tortured, but also raped by groups. There are governmentally approved brothels in wartime, where women are brought by force to in order to rape them by the whole horde of amuck men.

Men have artificially built the system of «feminity and masculinity» to support their ideology. And it is supported at the expense of women. A man is an invader and getter, a woman is a prey, spoil and product, the object of hate. The men’s aspiration to be «real men» is actualized in wartime, which always leads to murders and bloody rape. Chinese women still remember bloody mass rape of women by Japanese army in 1937; rape of Korean women during the war between Japan and Korea is still a subject of Korean legal actions. (1) The war accumulates hate of women, the selling of women’s bodies gains huge demand. Military prostitution, as well as any other, is a business of selling of women’s bodies by men to other men. But military prostitution is one of the most violent forms of it, which is often supported by the government.

But we don’t usually talk about it. Even now people can’t talk or write about rapes during the World War II, despite the fact that there are plenty of investigations, memories and monographs about it. Femicide in wartime is thought to be one of the rules of the war. The war exactly proves us that there is no difference between enemies and «native» soldiers. Women have only one enemy, and it doesn’t have any race, nation and definite citizenship. Rapes have been used by man since ancient times to demoralize the enemy or take revenge. Men sign their privilege over other men by rapes. We can say that men express themselves in bloody rapes in wartime. If we describe men’s face independently on their race, religion, nation, politic views or age, the face will be bloody mass rapes of women and girls.

Rapes in wartime are not strictly about military prostitution, because military prostitution is an organized system of rapes in specially created places for it, and rapes of women and girls in wartime are situational, spontaneous, but also systemic.

Rapes of «trophies» in wartime, governmental organization of prostitution have never been seen as a crime against women. The history has plenty of examples of violent mass rapes of women by men in wartime, involvement in prostitution by force, selling and buying of girls and women. There is no information about rapes in military reports, or it is classified as a secret. (1)

Modern international law doesn’t protect women from men’s rape, which is expressed in unimaginable cruelty and monstrous crimes in wartime. Regulations, which have been accepted to protect women’s rights are formal. Crimes against women are almost not investigated. But there are some prosecutions of rapists on the international level, as we know. For example, the facts of cruel crimes against women were determined in the former Yugoslavia in 1993. Security Council has created a criminal tribunal in order to prosecute people, who are guilty in crimes.
The first precedent, when international tribunal investigated the crime of sexual rape only, was the case of Anto Furungia, a commander of special forces of CDC in Vitez. In 1998 he was convicted of tortures, rapes and incitement to rapes. (3) But there are so little of such cases, that we can definitely say that even 1% of men guilty in military crimes against women didn’t get proper punishment.

Hunting for women was opened during the cold war. The women were raped by friends and enemies, by policemen, by camp guards, border guards, that is those who volunteered to «protect women».

Women were hurt, their sexual organs were crippled, the women were left to die, murdered, forced to get naked and dance for soldiers, work being nude. There were about 180 local conflicts since the decay of USSR. Women were entrapped as trophies and sold. The financial support of these conflicts was mostly carried out at the expense of women and girls trafficking. (1) Military conflicts fertilize the soil, creating ideal conditions for organization of male criminal gangs, which have weapon. These gangs transfer women illegally, involving them by deceit into sexual slavery.

Politically unstable situations are beneficial for souteneurs and rapists. Men use different forms of women trafficking. For example, there are auctions, made as slave markets. In 1997 male gang in Milan put up Russian women for auctions. The «goods» was undressed, shown and sold on an average for 1000 USA dollars. They use extreme measures to keep women in prostitution. Souteneurs tortured and killed refusing women in order to intimidate other ones. Two Ukrainian women in Istanbul were thrown out the balcony and their friends were forced to watch. The woman in Serbia was publically beheaded for the refuse to sell her body for rape. The profit of women trafficking is enormous. It exceeds 5-20 times the expenses for keeping women.

In ancient Rime there were special brothels for soldiers, where they could lash out at women, «blow off steam», «relieve their tension». Sometimes for convenience’ sake prostitutes were brought to military campaigns.

Mobile brothels, attached to the army, were created during the Crusades. For example, Philipp II created such brothels. (7) Mobile brothels functioned in Africa before World War I. 

During World War I men invaded enemies’ brothels, tortured and raped women. There were soldier and officer brothels. Stationary brothels were created in large localities. Austrians made special corpus of women for army’s «needs», Russian soldiers used nurses for rape, Frenchmen attached mobile brothel to every military unit. This experience was later adopted by many European armies. Prostitution was encouraged in conservative Germany, where woman was restricted by children, kitchen and church, because, as they said, prostitution saves other women from rapes, and men from homosexualism. There were several types of brothels in Germany. In officer brothels one woman was raped by 50 men, in sergeant ones – by 75 men, in soldier ones – by 100 rapists. There were special tickets for brothel visits, which were given away according to the schedule. Brothels in World War I were governmental. They were supported by the power. A woman was equated to a slice of meat on the governmental level.

The bright example of military prostitution is Japan of World War II. Japanese soldiers were accused of rapes of women in occupied territories. Allegedly, that was a reason to create «consolation stations». It expectedly leaded only to the rising amount of rapes of non-prostitute women. Japanese government made a net of hell for women – brothels, where a soldier could do whatever he wanted. Sometimes because of the huge stream of visitors, soldiers were given only 10 minutes. After that other man entered. It continued all day. Iosima Seiti tells: “One Korean woman was raped on an average 20-30 times per day, by even more that 40 Japanese officers and soldiers, and in mobile brothels – by more that 100 ones. Plenty of Korean women tragically died because of sexual violence and cruel oppression by Japanese sadists. Having completely undressed disobedient Korean women, they were rolling them on boards with big nails, hammered up, and beheaded them with swords. Their monstrous atrocities exceeded all human ideas”. (4)

Prostitute women often preferred death, using their own clothes. Somebody stole opium or potent drugs. One of the victims recalls that: “First time, they brought me to one of the rooms and slightly beat up. So, I had to obey. It didn’t matter, day or night, one soldier went, the other one entered immediately. We tried to dissuade each other from suicide, but they still were some cases. Some of us stole opium from soldiers and took it in big amount, dying from overdose. Others took packs of unknown pills, hoping it would end their life. Some of us hanged themselves on their own clothes in toilet”. (5)

The women’s age varied from 11 to 30 years. Plenty of women died from forcible abortion with a drug with big dose of arsenic. It was called «drug 606». The information about women’s tortures became worldwide after the National massacre. Plenty of photographic documents gushed into press. Japanese government reacted chilly on it. In 2007 Japanese government claimed that there were no facts of violence against women.

The victim of Japanese military prostitution, Pak En Sim, was sold into sexual slavery, when she was 14. She told that in first day she was raped by more than 10 men: “Japanese soldiers, all at once, rushed on me, like wild animals”. (4) The next day already the amount of rapists increased by 30. Pak En Sim recalls that: “If someone tried to fight, they punished her immediately: beat with feet, stabbed with a knife. Or if an «offence» was big, they beheaded her with a sword. The combat brothel was a real hell…” (4)

The victim of military prostitution, Kan tells in her interview: “I was caught and beat. They just beat up to the death. They caught me and beat up to the death, I can’t explain. I was starving for four days. That’s not a joke. Who can endure that, when you are beat by huge hulks? You can’t just explain it in words. I told nobody then, what a shame it was. And then the time to die has come. It was a shame, it was my first time and there… Everything was torn beneath. It was just torn apart in wild way. It was such a pain, that I couldn’t make a step. I didn’t even go to a doctor. I just disinfected it. Oh, God. What a shame”. (6) When she was asked. How many soldiers came to her, the victim answered: “Some of them came already in the first day… I don’t know. I fainted then. I don’t know how it was. Somebody entered, but I don’t remember, what exactly was there”. (6)

The criminal Iosima Seiti from the society of unskilled workers «Yamaguchi» recalls that: “I was a hunter for Korean women in combat brothels for sexual entertainment of Japanese soldiers. More than 1000 Korean women were brought their under my command. It was under supervision of armed policemen: we were kicking resisting women with feet and taking their infants away from them. Throwing away children of 2-3 years, who were running after their mothers, we pushed Korean women into truck body by force, and there was stir in villages. We sent them as cargo by freight trains and ships in command of troops of the western part. Undoubtedly, we stole them, not hired”. (4)

In 1993 United Nations Human Rights Tribunal counted that 90% of women from «consolation stations» were killed before 1947. The end of war hasn’t stopped the violence. The arrived American troops took the place of Japanese men. Brothels were closed only in 1946, but not because of considering the violence against women to be illegitimate, but because mass of American soldiers became suffering from venereal diseases.

Sexual violence against women occurs not only in wartime. It occurs always. Perhaps, «consolation stations» can shock somebody, but there is nothing unusual in it for the patriarchy. Even now hundreds of women and girls are being sold and bought; 8-10 years old girls are sold to men in Islamic countries, and some of such girls don’t survive in the wedding nights; women are exchanged for the kettle in developing countries; their sexual organs are crippled, the clitoris is erased, their labia are cut down, and this is called «a tradition»; in the developed Europe and USA millions of porno films are made, and men torture women in such films. Women are really bathing in their own blood, but it doesn’t shock anybody, because they got used to it, because it is a norm. USA is never under sanctions for making porno. The Germany’s government is not under a law for the legalization of prostitution. Radical Muslims are not under prosecution for early marriages, prohibition for girls to get education, for the «honor murders». Atrocities against women don’t stop in peacetime, but in wartime they became more visible.

Women are always subjected to violence; this is the law of patriarchy. And women have got used to it so much, that it doesn’t almost cause indignation. Women are like having been lived in a torture room. No woman has never really lived at freedom, and so she can’t imagine her life anywhere except from the hell. Women don’t know they can go outside, see the sun, feel the breath of wind. They don’t know that women can build completely different world, which will be without male violence.


Author: Shveia Krovavaia (Швея Кровавая)
Excerpt from a book: «Trap for women» («Ловушка для женщин»)
Translation: Viktoria Sushko (Сушко Виктория)

References:

1. Ерохина Л.Д. Формы эксплуатации населения в условиях военных конфликтов: военная проституция и торговля женщинами. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/formy-ekspluatatsii-naseleniya-v-usloviyah-voennyh-konfliktov-voennaya-prostitutsiya-i-torgovlya-zhenschinami
2. Пиджаков А.Ю. Проблема борьбы с торговлей женщинами. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/problema-borby-s-torgovley-zhenschinami
3. Самович Ю.В. Правовая регламентация преступлений против женщин в международном гуманитарном праве. https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/pravovaya-reglamentatsiya-prestupleniy-protiv-zhenschin-v-mezhdunarodnom-gumanitarnom-prave
4. «Станции утешения» для японских солдат. https://topwar.ru/136069-stancii-utesheniya-dlya-yaponskih-soldat.html
5. «Comfort Women». Сексуальное рабство в армиях Японии и США в 1932-1947. https://amexc.ru/obshhestvo/dirty-secret/comfort-women-seksualnoe-rabstvo-v-armijah-japonii-i-ssha-v-1932-1947.html
6. «Я думала буду еду готовить…»: из воспоминаний г-жи Кан о «станциях утешения». https://oriental.hse.ru/hismem/kan
7. Reynaert, François. Dans les bordels de l'armée française (фр.). Bibliobs. https://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/essais/20140424.OBS5078/dans-les-bordels-de-l-armee-francaise.html