ASIA PACIFIC / Society

Japanese photographer blows whistle on treatment of ‘comfort women’

The Japanese photographer Tsukasa Yajima with portraits he took of former 'comfort women,' or women who suffered under Japan’s military brothel system before and during World War II, at the history museum of the House of Sharing shelter, in Gwangju, South Korea, on July 3. Although Yajima has won praise for exposing problems at the shelter, he has also been the focus of intense backlash. | WOOHAE CHO / THE NEW YORK TIMES

By Choe Sang-Hun
The New York Times

Aug 15, 2022

GWANGJU, South Korea –

Since 2000, Tsukasa Yajima has taken stark, poignant portraits of former victims of Japan’s World War II military brothel system to help the world learn about their painful history.

Now, the 51-year-old photographer from Japan finds himself at the center of a current scandal about the treatment of the women, more than three-quarters of a century after the end of the war, during which they were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers.

In the years after its founding in 1992, the House of Sharing, in Gwangju, assumed the aura of a sacred place, where politicians and students came to meet dozens of former victims of the brothel system, known euphemistically as "comfort women,” who had found shelter there, including the four currently in residence.