Sexual Slavery and the Comfort Women of World War II

TL;DR: The Japanese "comfort system" as discussed by the authors was defined as a system of sexual servitude that violated international law, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) adopted a definition of sexual slavery that emphasizes commercial trafficking and deprivation of liberty, rather than control over sexuality.

Abstract: International law prohibited slavery well before the Japanese army created \"comfort stations\" during World War II. Slavery, correctly defined, is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. Slavery is often equated with forced labor or deprivation of liberty; however, sexual autonomy is a power attaching to the right of ownership of a person, and controlling another person's sexuality is, therefore, a form of slavery. The Japanese \"comfort system\" combined these forms of control. In addition to restricting its victims' freedom of movement, it forced them to perform sexual labor. Thus, it constituted a system of slavery that violated international law. The treaties and customary law that provide the basis for criminalizing slavery have used different language in their attempts to define the crime. As both the Special Rapporteur to the UN Commission on Human Rights and the ITCY have recognized, however, the language of the 1926 Slavery Convention, by focusing on the exercise of the rights of ownership, provides the best definition of slavery and one that encompasses sexual slavery. The recent Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), on the other hand, adopts a definition of sexual slavery that emphasizes commercial trafficking and deprivation of liberty, rather than control over sexuality. Although the Rome Statute