The story of the army's comfort stations begins in 1932, with Japanese Lieutenant-General Okamura Yasuji, seeking a solution to the 223 reported rapes by Japanese troops, asked to send comfort women for his soldiers in Shanghai, China. The Japanese Army used comfort stations extensively until the war ended in the Pacific in 1945.

Comfort women is a spellbinding and terrible recital of crimes that can never be condoned. Girls as young as 10 rounded up in the Philippines, Korea, China, Burma, and Indonesia. Sometimes the recruits bought as chattel, from their families or from brothel-keepers; more often tricked with promises of jobs as nurses, laundry women, and factory workers. Typically at first given a rough medical examination, which to an ignorant virgin was terrifying enough. Followed by raping by the officers. Finally they went into the comfort stations, often thousands of miles from home, sometimes in combat zones. In distant places, orders were given to the headman to supply women, an order that met by handing over the village's widows.

A day's schedule at the comfort station might go like this: from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., private soldiers had the run of the place. From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., reserved for non-commissioned officers. At 8:30 p.m., officers got exclusive use of the place. Once the women arrived at the comfort station they had to have sex with 20 to 30 men a day.

When a woman protested at the quantity of customers forced on her, she was tied to the bed, and the line continued to move. Saturday afternoon was off day, but otherwise it was twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week. .

The Japanese soldiers forcefully took women for providing sex from their families; resistance led to beating or killing. Some were married women with children. Estimates of the number of comfort women during the war vary widely, ranging from 20,000 to 300,000.

Historical research into Japanese government records documents several reasons given for setting up military brothels. First, Japanese authorities hoped that providing easily accessible prostitutes and sexual slaves would eventually heighten the military effectiveness of Japanese soldier. Second, by institutionalising brothels and placing them under official scrutiny, the government hoped to keep the spread of STD's under control. Lastly, creating brothels in military bases direct on the front-line removed the need to grant leave to soldiers.

Accounts from surviving comfort women paint a grim picture of Japanese military brothels. The women divided into three or four categories, depending on their service. The freshest women, the least likely to suffer from STD, were placed in the highest category. However, as time went on, the likelihood of comfort women getting STDs became more certain too diseased to be having any further use, and finally abandoned. When the comfort women became useless because of their sickness, the soldiers mixed their milk with cyanide milk, their bodies taken to a cave and finally, blown up with a grenade.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, famously stated in his memoir published in 1978 that he set up a comfort house for his troops of about 3000 when he was a navy lieutenant in charge of accounting. When criticised about this matter, he refused to admit his responsibility, claiming that he was unaware the women were forced into service.

The events that led to international awareness of the issue began in 1988. In that year, Professor Yun Chung Ok of Ehwa Women's University in Korea began to lead an activist group that conducted and presented research about the comfort women.

The Japanese government denied that women had been forced to work at comfort stations. After the war the Japanese got rid of any related documents and references.

In 1992 Professor Yoshimi Yoshiaki of Chuo University found wartime documents in the Library of the National Institute for Defence Studies that confirmed the Japanese Forces had operated comfort stations. Japanese newspapers published excerpt from the document. The Japanese government finally admitted involvement.

Japan formally responded setting up of comfort stations in 1993 and offered compensation and support allowances to the old and sick women a few years later.

In 1995, Japan set up an "Asia Women's Fund" for atonement in the form of material compensation and to provide each surviving comfort woman with an unofficial signed apology from the prime minister. But because of the unofficial nature of the fund, many comfort women have rejected these payments and continue to seek an official apology.

But most of the survivors are approachingor have reached -- 80 years old. They will probably all die without hearing an official apology or receiving compensation for their ordeal, from the Government of Japan. In a demonstration commemorating the end of 60 years of WWII, they appealed for an official apology and not compensation, so they can die with grace!

Billy I Ahmed is a researcher