Ayumi is one of many girls who have lived in a deep abyss of poverty, sexual exploitation, homelessness, and the dearth of reliable human relationships. The clothes girls wear and communication devices they carry have changed over the decades, but exploitative sex industries that absorb girls and women in distress remain robust—rather, its recruitment methods have become more sophisticated and the services on offer more diverse. Sexual exploitation spreads not only by the industry owners and consumers. Japanese society as a whole has been giving them voluminous space and freedom. It has hyper-commercialized sexual services, reduced girls’ value to that of sex devices, and along the way harming their physical health and damaging their basic sense of self-dignity. This is exactly the society that cannot squarely face the history of “Comfort Women.” Sexual violence is not being seen as violence.
