The ‘comfort women’ of Malaysia and Singapore as transnational history and memory

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ABSTRACT The sexual enslavement of ‘comfort women’ in Malaysia and Singapore during the Second World War by the Japanese military produced a transnational history, remembered through transnational memories. While there were significant numbers of Korean and Japanese women in the comfort stations, the Japanese military also enslaved local Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Eurasian women. Women from China, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Thailand were also used to provide sexual services, as were captured European women. This article explores not only the history of these diverse groups of women who served the Japanese military during the Japanese Occupation of Malaysia and Singapore, but also the contradictions produced through how they have been remembered (or not) in the nation-states of Malaysia and Singapore. Memory suppression of the comfort women in Malaysia and Singapore by the state has been a dominant pattern.