Comfort Women Victim 'Prostitute' Controversy: Professor Ramseyer Claims "No Documents Proving Forced Labor"

by Kwon Jaehee

Published 05 Jan.2022 16:50(KST)

▲Professor Mark Ramseyer

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Mark Ramseyer, a Harvard Law School professor who sparked outrage by labeling Japanese military comfort women victims as 'prostitutes,' has now stirred controversy by claiming that "there are no contemporary documents proving the forced mobilization of comfort women."

On the 5th, Professor Ramseyer made this claim in his paper titled "Sexual Contracts in the Pacific War: A Response to Criticism," posted on the Harvard Law School website.

In this paper, Ramseyer asserted, "The claim that Korean women were forcibly taken by the Japanese military against their will is false," and declared, "Korean women were not conscripted into comfort stations by a planned Japanese military coercion."

He also argued that the book "My War Crime," published in 1983 by Japanese writer and activist Yoshida Seiji, is virtually the only basis for the forced mobilization of comfort women. This book is a memoir in which Yoshida himself recounts his experience of abducting comfort women in Jeju Island.

Ramseyer stated, "This book describes how the cavalry threatened Korean women with bayonets to rape them and send them as sex slaves to comfort stations," and added, "The 1996 UN report that raised the forced mobilization theory of Korean women heavily relies on this book."

He continued, "However, for 35 years after the end of the war in 1945, there was no evidence proving forced mobilization," and said, "It was only in the late 1980s that some Korean women began to make such claims."

Ramseyer mentioned, "Following Yoshida's book, Korean women began to claim forced mobilization unlike before, but Yoshida admitted before his death that his book was fictional," and stated, "The comfort women controversy started with Yoshida's 'fraud.'"

He said, "Most experts who criticized me are from Japan or Korea, but although they knew about this book, no one mentioned it."

In December 2020, Ramseyer caused controversy by publishing a paper in the international academic journal International Review of Law and Economics (IRLE) denying the forced mobilization and the sexual slavery nature of comfort women.

Regarding the controversial paper, Professor Ramseyer claimed, "The core of the paper was about why comfort women received advance payments and under what contractual conditions their working hours were determined," and said, "However, none of the criticisms directed at me targeted this economic analysis, and most criticisms did not even mention the core 'contract contents' of the paper."

In response to criticism that no actual contracts were presented as evidence, he rebutted, "Readers of the paper would know well that I never claimed to have used actual contracts as data."

He added, "As far as I know, no contracts remain due to the war," and "The materials used in the paper included government documents, war memoirs, newspaper advertisements, and accounting books of comfort stations."

Regarding criticism that he inaccurately cited existing research or books, he said, "There were a very few mistakes, but they did not affect the analysis of comfort women contracts."

In the paper released that day, Ramseyer also cited last year's research by Lee Woo-yeon, a research fellow at the Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research and co-author of 'Anti-Japan Tribalism,' who became controversial for receiving support from Japanese right-wing groups.

This research claims that comfort women voluntarily entered into 'contracts' knowing they would have to serve the Japanese military at the time.