Following 13 years of research, a city historian has identified 149 sites that were used by Japanese invaders to house the women they forced into sexual slavery.

His findings on the World War II-era atrocities are documented in a new book called "Shanghai Japanese Army Comfort House Records."
Around half of the brothels were located in the Hongkou District, which had a heavy Japanese population in the years before the war.

Su Zhiliang, the book's author and a professor at Shanghai Normal University, said he was surprised to find that the city had so many "comfort houses," a Japanese euphemism for places where Asian women were forced into sexual servitude.

"The main purpose of my research was to collect evidence for history, as most of these women have passed away and the buildings have been destroyed," Su said yesterday. "Only two of the city's former sex slaves are alive today -- and they're in their 80s -- and only about one fourth of the brothels remain."

Su said he plans to invite one of the women to tell sociologists, legal experts, historians and news media about her ordeal early next month in an effort to disseminate the historical evidence.

Su said his discovery of the 149 houses was supported by historical documents and witnesses, including Japanese archives, Japanese veterans and Chinese victims.

"The number might rise further, since I have received new tips from elderly people after the book was published," he said.

According to his research, about 200,000 Chinese women were forced into sexual slavery nationwide during the invasion of Japanese troops in the 1930s and 40s. Shanghai was the site of the Japanese army's first sex-slave brothels, Su said.

Shanghai was the largest overseas base for the Japanese navy in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), and in November 1931, Japan set up its first "comfort women" houses for its sailors in Hongkou.

The number of these brothels began to rise sharply in 1937, when Japan seized the city.

Zhu Qiaomei, a native of Shanghai's Chongming County, was the country's oldest surviving sex slave until she died in February at age 96. Zhu was forced to provide sexual services to Japanese soldiers for about two years.

(Shanghai Daily June 20, 2005)