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Defense officials defend prostitution for military

The military used to hire prostitutes to provide sexual services to servicemen, but the practice can by no means be compared with the forced prostitution which the Japanese Imperial Army imposed on Taiwan women during the colonial period, defense officials said yesterday.

"To compare military prostitutes with `comfort women' is unreasonable and illogical. The two things are totally different," said an official with the Ministry of National Defense.

"Military prostitutes were not forced into the trade like the comfort women. They went into the business on their own will. They worked under contract with the military," the official said.

"The practice initially was born out of necessity. We must understand that when the KMT government retreated to Taiwan in 1949, most of the soldiers in the army were single," he said.

The defense official, who declined to be identified, made the remarks in response to the comparison recently made by presidential adviser Shi Wen-lung (許文龍) between military prostitutes and Taiwan women forced to serve as "comfort women" during the Japanese colonial period.

The military prostitution as referred to no longer exists. It was first abolished in Taiwan proper in the late 1960s and later in the offshore island groups of Kinmen and Matsu in 1989. The brothels were also known as "military paradises," or by their code name, "831."

Chang Li-teh (張立德), a military analyst with the Defense Technology Monthly magazine, said according to his understanding, the military prostitutes were indeed not forced into the trade as alleged by some people.

"I am not in a position to comment on whether military prostitution was good or bad.

"But I must point out that sexual offenses committed by soldiers against civilian women started to occur after military prostitution was abolished in the offshore islands," Chang said.

An army colonel, who had served in Kinmen for several years, cited several examples of violent sexual offenses committed by soldiers in Kinmen after military prostitution was abolished.

"The victims of these offenses included an elderly woman who was over 80-years-old, and a girl who was just five. These crimes happened in the years after the abolishment of military prostitution," the colonel said.
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