Most categories of atrocity committed by Japanese troops during WWII were prosecuted at the 1946 Tokyo war-crimes trials. One major category was ignored, however: the thousands of women, mostly Korean, who were coerced into sexual slavery for the pleasure of the Imperial Army. Hicks (Hong Kong Countdown) begins his stark report with a historical survey of wartime sexual exploitation of women, then narrows the focus to the "comfort women" system developed by the Japanese. The copious testimony of victims is shockingly graphic. The author reviews the progress of a class-action suit brought by surviving comfort women in Tokyo District Court in 1991: the Japanese government has admitted complicity, but no apology or compensation has been tendered. This significant addition to "the poor record of mankind to womankind, especially in war," properly approaches the subject as a human-rights issue tied to the rise of feminism in Asia. Photos.

George Hicks is an anthropologist. Much of his work focuses on the experiences of the Japanese during World War II.