Abduction of Girls by Korean Gangs - Story of Comfort Woman

The police cracked down on abductions of Korean girls by Korean mafias during the era of Japanese rule.

There remain a number of articles in newspapers which describe news about abductions of Korean girls by Korean mafias and its crackdown by the police during the era of Japanese rule over Korea. The followings are the examples.

• Lead: The Busan Police Station arrested the criminal who kidnaped girls of good families and earned by selling them off to Manchuria - Dong-a libo Newspaper, December 4th, 1938.
• Lead: Dishonest staffing dealers are rampant. They abduct women in villages. The number of woman victims exceeds 100. - Dong-a libo Newspaper, August 31st, 1939
• Lead: The gang of woman abduction was finally placed in custody. - Osaka Asahi Nansenban, November 11, 1939
• Lead: The gang was placed in custody. They abducted 14 women including girls in rural areas. - Osaka Asahi Nishisenban, June 28th, 1940.

There exist many other articles describing abduction of Korean women by Korean gangs. The following is the translation of an article of Osaka Asahi Nansenban, March 30, 1930.

Lead: Village girls fell victim. The gang cleverly kidnaped them to sell out. All the terrible details were revealed.

Article: The Keijo Nishi Daimon Police Station arrested the suspects of the kidnapping of girls, which was reported previously. Now, the police are investigating Kim, the leader of the kidnapping, and 12 girls who were imprisoned by him. As the investigation proceeds, the case expands larger and larger to the extent that the number of girls who were sold to North China and Manchuria is expected to exceed 100. With a series of kidnapping recently, police stations consider the case to be serious, and strengthen surveillance on brokers and exposure of similar cases. The officers in charge of the case are surprised to know the poorness of villages and ignorance of girls which were clarified from the case. This gives a big issue as a social problem.

Most of the victims, not only this case, are girls in villages in South Korea. Generally, brokers forge letter of attorney for adopting using flattery, sometimes without paying, and sell girls lawlessly. It was revealed that this kind of broker has increase recently, and the authority began to take necessary actions in coordination with provinces.

Korea and the left wing insist that Japanese Army forcibly brought Korean girls for Comfort women. Some Korean women testified that they were taken by Japanese soldiers or officers. The truth is that there were many Korean gangs who brought Korean girls by fraud or kidnapped them. The police under Japanese rule tried to arrest such brokers and made efforts to stop the girl trade.

The attitude of Korean and the left wing to replace Korean gang with Japan Army for the abductions of girls causes dislike of Japanese people for Korean and the left wing.