Based on a front-page report by the Sankei Shimbun, this essay examines the realities of the UNESCO “Memory of the World” application for comfort women materials. It highlights the absence of objective evidence for forced recruitment or sexual slavery and details the problems surrounding a Korea-led application process involving the Imperial War Museum.

August 8, 2017.
The following is from the front page of the Sankei Shimbun dated August 6.
China and South Korea: Application for Memory of the World registration.
Comfort women: No materials proving forced recruitment.
Thirty items held in the United Kingdom: Official documents suggesting “licensed prostitution.”
[London = Shin Okabe].
It was revealed on the 5th that thirty comfort women–related materials of the former Japanese military held by the Imperial War Museum, which is jointly applying for registration in UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” program together with fourteen organizations from eight countries including Japan, China, and South Korea, had been identified.
The application claims that women and girls were forced into sexual slavery and that the Japanese military established and operated a sexual slavery system.
However, the museum’s materials contained no objective evidence showing that women were forcibly recruited to become comfort women or that they were sexual slaves.
Among the submitted materials were testimonies and photographs lacking authenticity, while at the same time official Japanese military documents suggesting that comfort women were “licensed prostitutes” were also included.
The registration of comfort women materials as “Memory of the World” is being promoted primarily by the International Solidarity Committee, which has its secretariat in South Korea.
In May of last year, 2,744 items were submitted to UNESCO.
According to the Imperial War Museum, a request was made by the committee’s chair, a South Korean scholar named Hye-soo Shin, to confirm the attribution of thirty materials held by the museum and to apply for their registration.
The museum agreed to the application, stating that inclusion in the Memory of the World would be an “honor.”
However, the museum itself is not a member of the International Solidarity Committee.
One of the thirty items was unrelated to comfort women.
It also appears that the museum did not sufficiently verify whether the designated materials actually indicated comfort women or substantiated claims of sexual slavery.
The submitted materials consisted of the following:
(1) An official document seized by British soldiers immediately after the war in Burma, defining regulations for a comfort station operated by the Japanese military at the Mandalay garrison.
(2) Photographs of Chinese and Malay comfort women taken in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon), and in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Indian Ocean.
(3) Video footage of comfort women filmed in Burma and the Andaman Islands.
(4) Testimony interviews of British soldiers and cameramen who claimed to have witnessed comfort women or comfort stations.
(5) Diaries and records of British soldiers who were allegedly forced as prisoners of war to construct comfort stations or who witnessed comfort women.
A total of thirty items.
To be continued.