Living to tell

By Lina Sidarto

When Japan occupied Indonesia in the 1940s, its military forced thousands of women across the archipelago into sexual slavery. Almost seven decades later, the suffering of these women is still largely ignored by the Indonesian government and the public. A recently published book tries to break the silence.

“I wish I were ugly. The ugly girls were sent home after a few days or weeks,” says Emah, born in West Java in 1926. “I had to stay. I was at the brothel for three years, until 1945. In the afternoon it started: first the soldiers. Then in the evening came the officers and the captains.”

Emah was one of the some 50 women interviewed by Dutch journalist and anthropologist Hilde Janssen for her book Shame and Innocence: The Suppressed War Chronicles of Indonesia’s Comfort Women.  

Janssen wanted to bring the women’s stories to a wider audience.

“Shame, stigmatization and guilt has caused Indonesian comfort women to be silent about their war past. Many are still not talking. The women in this book have found the courage to share their past with us.”

Jugun Ianfu

In total, some 200,000 women across Asian countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea and China were subjected to sexual slavery by their Japanese occupiers from the 1930s until the end of World War II.  In Indonesia, the number is estimated at 20,000, Janssen said in her book.

These women are known by the euphemism jugun ianfu: jugun means “following the military”, while ianfu means “comfort women”.

The cruel fate of these women was hardly discussed in public until a group of Korean survivors started telling their stories in the early 1990s, demanding apologies and acknowledgment from the Japanese government. Their actions were then followed by women from other Asian countries, including some from Indonesia.

In a statement in 1995, Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama offered “my profound apology for all those who, as wartime comfort women, suffered emotional and physical wounds that can never be closed.” However, the Japanese government refused legal responsibilities, and instead set up the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF), a private foundation which handed out some Y1.3 billion ($14.6 million) in the course of 12 years.

Human rights bodies, including UN special rapporteurs, have repeatedly called on Tokyo to issue formal apologies and hand out compensation directly to the victims – instead of through a private fund – and punish those responsible for war crimes against women.

In recent years, however, the Japanese government has taken a step back from its earlier conciliatory tone. In 2007, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied the Japanese military had forced women into sexual slavery and stated that “there is no evidence to prove there was coercion".

Jakarta looking the other way

Janssen, who has lived in Jakarta since 2000, noticed that the Indonesian media would cover the topic of comfort women from time to time, but often only referred to overseas cases.

Lawyer and women activist Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, a longtime advocate for the plight of Indonesian comfort women, blames the government for “never acknowledging the suffering of these war victims.”

Several Indonesian NGOs, including LBH (Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation), have strived to identify former comfort women throughout the country in order to get them recognition and compensation.

To the outrage of many, especially the women who have overcome deep shame to come forward with their past, Jakarta refused to distribute the money offered by the AWF to the women in the 1990s.

“The official reason given by then Social Affairs Minister Inten Soeweno was that it would be difficult to prove whether someone had really been a comfort woman. Even if it were proven, she said, it would only bring the woman shame,” says Nursyahbani.

That  reasoning, she argues, is “nonsense. Victims are once again suppressed by a masculine-centric cultural view which puts shame on the women while they are actually the victims of male aggression.”

The money, some Y380 million, was then used by the Social Affairs ministry to build old people’s homes, which sparked further anger.

“This disregards our culture, in which very few children would put their parents in homes,” Nursyahbani says, adding that “the government gave no accountability on the use of the funds. Some are suspicious that there is corruption involved.”

An important reason for Indonesia looking the other way may be that it does not want to disrupt its good ties with Japan.

“During the war, while Japan was an occupying force, some Indonesians also saw them as liberators from Dutch colonialism,” Janssen says. “(First President) Sukarno never pushed Japan very hard over its war crimes, and neither did (his successor) Soeharto. For decades Japan has been a premier investor in Indonesia.”

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Portraits and stories

The idea for Janssen’s book, published in April, originated from a project about war victims in the region during the Japanese occupation.

“The thought was to focus on the men who were sent to work on the Burmese railway, and the women who were forced to become sexual workers. It turned out that the story of the women was much more layered, and emotionally more complex.”

For two years Janssen and Dutch photographer Jan Banning crisscrossed Indonesia to search for these comfort women, itself a complicated journey.

While the list of women compiled during the 1990s by NGOs was a start, it was far from complete.  

“There were so many layers we had to carefully penetrate before actually getting to the women: NGO workers, guides who helped out in the past, village administrators and family members,” Janssen says.

Janssen had to convince all parties that hers was a serious project, not sensationalism.

“Some people were very skeptical. It was also difficult for me to explain that I was there to write up their stories, not to hand out money.”

It was often impossible to speak to the women in private, as the presence of two Europeans – one with a camera – in small villages naturally attracted attention.

Another major obstacle was getting the women to give specific information about their experiences.

“It was very painful for them. Some had never talked about their past, and even the ones who had told their story previously had never spoken in detail about it – to anyone.”

Rita Sri Suwantari, who interpreted for Janssen in Central Java, experienced those difficulties firsthand.

“Even for me it was very uncomfortable to say words like ‘intercourse’ to them. Many could not bring themselves to say it.”

Patience was key in the process, Rita explained.

“In the beginning, they would usually use euphemisms like ‘touching’ or ‘massaging,’ or say that it only happened once. Some would open up after a while, but others would just clam up.”

A place in history

Janssen’s patience bore fruit: Her book – enhanced by Banning’s stark close-up portraits -- is testimony to the dark pages in Indonesia’s war history which have received scant attention.

Like the story of Antonetha from southern Maluku, who was snatched from her home with her sister Elsina.  They were kept in guarded huts deep in the forest which housed 12 girls, who had to process maize during the day and serve men during the night.

“Each girl had her own room with a number and a Japanese given name. Elsina a.k.a Akemi in room number one, and Antonetha or Yoriko next door.”

Nurpaung was 15 when she was rounded up after leaving a movie theater with her cousin near her hometown in North Sumatra. She was moved a number of times to various remote plantations where girls were kept “to serve soldiers.”

She thought many times of committing suicide. When she came back to her village after the war ended she found that her mother had died of grief.

Not just in brothels

Janssen believes that one of the most important points to come out of her book was that sex slavery under the Japanese went far beyond just the “official” brothels.

“There were so many places where girls and women were sexually molested: army camps, factories, plantations. Girls that were doing regular labor were often forced into sex. Some were raped once, others repeatedly in the course of years.”

She deeply admired the women’s resilience.

“They were all such strong women. They had the courage to pick up their lives again, and to carry on.” Nurpaung, for example, joined the TKR (Tentara Keamanan Rakyat, a people’s army unit) after she was freed to fight for Indonesia’s independence.

Janssen describes in her book how the women, most from poor families, continued to work hard throughout their lives.

She hopes her book will get them the proper respect and recognition they deserve in Indonesia’s history.

Emah voiced her own hope: “The truth has to be told. I would much rather not be reminded all the time about the Japanese occupation. But it is important that people know about it. When young people come to interview me I speak to them, although I ask them to keep it short, because it hurts too much.”


Schaamte en onschuld: Het verdrongen oorlogsverleden van troostmeisjes in Indonesie by Hilde Jannsen. (Nieuw Amsterdam publishers)
Troostmeisjes/ Comfort women by Jan Banning (Nieuw Amsterdam publishers)
An exhibition of the photos and the stories will be held at the Erasmus Huis, Jakarta, from August  12 until September 23


Paini: Born in Central Java in 1930

Paini was taken from her home when she was 13 to perform forced labor at the local army camp. She was raped repeatedly in a period of five months.
“The work was very strenuous, but we received no food, let alone money. The only thing they (the Japanese) gave us was hard labour, until we could do no more. And the women were all harassed at the fort.”
Officially, Paini only worked during the day, performing tasks ranging from cooking to carrying rocks for road construction, and was allowed to return home in the evening.
“But when they ‘needed’ me, I would be picked up in the evening, and then afterwards brought home again. I did it to survive, just like my sister. My brother never returned.”

Wainem: Born in Central Java in 1925

    Wainem, then 17, was rounded up in 1943, put on a bus and taken to an army base in Surakarta. Together with a number of other women, she stayed there for a year, and was then transferred to another base in Yogyakarta where she stayed for two years.
    During the day she had to weave mats, while in the evening she was forced to have sex with military personnel, sometimes with up to four men in one evening. Some men would take her to the privacy of their rooms, while others would unabashedly rape her in common spaces at the camp.
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