GreenMe Editorial team Sexual violence and military prostitution shaped 20th-century conflicts worldwide—from Europe and Asia to Africa and the U.S. This article explores the complex, often silenced legacy.
Among the many disturbing chapters in the history of modern warfare, the story of the “comfort women” is perhaps the most emblematic—and certainly the most controversial. But it is far from the only case. Throughout the 20th century, in conflict zones across the globe, prostitution became a strategic tool: to manage soldiers, suppress dissent, and control local populations. It’s a practice that not only speaks to the deep fragility of the female condition in wartime, but also to the disturbing role of propaganda in shaping our collective memory.
Take Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. The German army systematically established military brothels in countries like France, Belgium and the Netherlands. These establishments, closely regulated, were designed to keep soldiers “in line,” supposedly curb the spread of disease, and contain moral “disorder.” The women involved—often local—were trapped in a brutal triangle of survival, occupation and violence. It’s a dark irony that what was framed as a form of discipline was, in reality, another expression of dominance.
In Africa, during wars of independence in Algeria, Angola and Mozambique, prostitution was similarly deployed as a tool of military control. In many rural areas, the presence of foreign troops and mercenaries gave rise to parallel economies of sexual exploitation—tolerated, and sometimes encouraged, by colonial powers to assert dominance. These events are rarely taught in classrooms or commemorated in public ceremonies, yet they left deep scars in local communities.
Then there’s Southeast Asia, where things took a different, yet tragically familiar shape. During the Vietnam War, the enormous influx of American soldiers led countless women to turn to prostitution simply to survive. One haunting example: the “camptown women” of South Korea, who worked near U.S. military bases from the postwar era through the 1980s. Many lived in precarious conditions and were later shunned by Korean society, reduced to invisible footnotes in the Cold War narrative.
The comfort women debate: history, trauma and revisionism
Of all these cases, none have been as heavily contested—or as diplomatically charged—as that of the comfort women. During World War II, the Japanese Imperial Army created a network of “comfort stations” that operated across occupied Asia. Women were recruited or forcibly taken from Korea, China, the Philippines and other territories to serve Japanese soldiers. Today, the very phrase “comfort women” is the subject of ongoing historical and political battles.
In Inconvenient and Uncomfortable: Transcending Japan’s Comfort Women Paradigm, author Marshal Wordsworth urges readers to challenge the prevailing victim-centric narrative. He argues that such a lens risks flattening the complexity of individual experiences, obscuring local recruitment dynamics, and ignoring the range of relationships that sometimes formed between women and soldiers.
This perspective has not been welcomed everywhere. In South Korea, where comfort women have become a symbol of colonial trauma and national identity, many historians and activists reject any attempt to “complicate” the narrative. Meanwhile, in Japan, debates over responsibility continue to fuel diplomatic tensions with neighboring countries, proving that war wounds don’t easily heal when they’re caught in the crossfire of geopolitics.
The Balkans: rape and brothels as tools of ethnic terror
Another haunting example of sexual violence in wartime emerged in the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s. During the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, rape and forced prostitution were weaponized as instruments of terror and ethnic cleansing. According to reports presented at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), women were held in makeshift brothels and detention camps. There, they were subjected to repeated abuse by paramilitary groups aiming not just to humiliate, but to psychologically dismantle entire communities.
This is perhaps the clearest demonstration that military prostitution is not always a matter of soldier morale or discipline. In many cases, it becomes a tool of political violence—a psychological weapon disguised as transactional sex.
Silence, stigma and the long road to justice
Despite scattered attempts at reparations, the issue remains largely unresolved. A 2015 agreement between South Korea and Japan—offering financial compensation and an official apology—was dismissed by many survivors as lacking genuine moral accountability.
Outside of Asia, the silence has been deafening. In Africa, decades passed before communities dared speak of the exploitation that occurred during independence struggles. In Europe, military prostitution is rarely foregrounded in official wartime narratives, as if these stories were too inconvenient to remember.
For the women involved, reintegration into civilian life was often a lonely and traumatic journey. Shame, social stigma and the absence of institutional support meant many carried their experiences as painful secrets. And that, perhaps, is the most tragic legacy: a collective amnesia that prioritizes national pride over personal truth.
Discussing military brothels and sexual violence in war is not about rehashing old grievances. It’s about grappling with the hidden anatomy of conflict—where power, survival and ideology collide in women’s bodies. From the Balkans to the Pacific, from colonial Africa to Cold War Asia, the story repeats itself with chilling consistency.
An American reflection
It’s worth noting that the United States has not been immune to these dynamics. From Vietnam to Korea, and even in more recent conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, American military presence has often coincided with a rise in local sex industries—many of them rife with exploitation. Although the U.S. officially condemns human trafficking, its overseas military operations have historically created environments that foster it, intentionally or not.
If there is any lesson to draw from this uncomfortable history, it’s that silence and shame serve no one—least of all the survivors. Acknowledging these stories is a moral imperative, not just for reconciliation, but for preventing the repetition of such atrocities in future conflicts.
