‘Comfort women’ files unearthed by archivists

A batch of document papers in Japanese about "comfort women" were recently unearthed in Northeast China, China News Service reported Friday. The files, which are believed to reveal further details of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army during WWII, were discovered in the northeastern Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces. The documents were later transferred to authorities in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as the cases depicted in the documents took place in the region. Government agencies are currently working to translate all the documents. The latest discovery came after the Jilin Provincial Archives announced last year for the first time that it has unearthed records confirming that the Japanese government procured "comfort women" using funds designated for public spending during Japan's occupation of China (1937-1945). The 25 files on "comfort women" include two investigative reports, two telephone records and 21 documents on troops forcing women into sexual slavery. One of the reports, written on 1938, revealed that in the space of just 10 days, 8,929 Japanese soldiers "visited comfort stations" in Zhenjiang, East China's Jiangsu Province.