Over 100,000 women across Asia were victims of enforced prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Forces during World War II. Until as recently as 1993 the Japanese government continued to deny this shameful aspect of its wartime history.

In 1938 the Japanese Imperial Forces established a 'comfort station' in Shanghai. This was the first of many officially sanctioned brothels set up across Asia to service the needs of the Japanese forces. It was also the first comfort station where women, many in their early teens, were coaxed, tricked and forcibly recruited to act as prostitutes for the Japanese military.

Using official documents and other original sources never before available, George Hicks tells how well-established and well-organised the comfort system was across the Japanese Empire, and how complete was its cover-up. He also traces the fight by Japanese and Korean feminist and liberal groups to expose the truth and tells of the complicity of the Japanese government in maintaining the lie. The Comfort Women is an account of a shameful aspect of Japanese racial and gender politics.

The Comfort Women allows the victims of this unacknowledged war crime to tell their own stories powerfully and poignantly; to speak of their shame and the full magnitude and brutality of the system.

'The most extensive record available in English of the ugly story.' Elisabeth Rubinfein, New York Newsday