It was not until I was a high school student that I knew the existence of “Karayuki-san”, because it was never mentioned in schoolbooks in Japan, even now. Today let me share it, a sad history of Japanese young woman.
"Karayuki-san" signified Japanese young prostitutes who worked abroad before WWⅡ. "Kara" of this word vaguely means foreign country and "yuki" is equivalent to "go" in Japanese.
The major reason they had to work like this was poverty. During those times, a lot of Japanese were very poor so girls were counted on as breadwinners. Also until then in Japan, the registered prostitute system, kind of a managing system to keep women in bawdy houses officially, had already established, so it was very common to sell their daughters for their living. Actually almost all of the girls came from poor families like in farm villages or fishing ones.
The people that introduced the girls to overseas brothels were called as "pimps", who went around poor villages to buy adolescent girls from their parents by lying such as "for just working at a hotel abroad". Later, by selling the girls to brothels, pimps got much charges.
Principal countries where Karayuki-san worked were China, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Borneo since at that time, there were many demands from Western militaries that colonized some Asian countries. Karayuki-san were popular among western customers because they were obedient and never thought stealing customer's belongings unlike other country's prosecutes.
The girls who kept remitting to their families were able to be heard by their families in Japan, but there were some girls who suddenly vanished. In such cases, the family couldn't know whether her daughter was alive or not.
Karayuki-san's average life span was around 20 years old. After they were sold, they died of some diseases like malaria, venereal disease and opium and so on. Then many girls of them were buried under foreign lands hoping to go back to their home country.
Even though WWⅡ was over, for a long time the beingness of Karayuki-san didn't come to the light because it was considered as Japan's shame. Hence it was since 1972 that this history have known by many people when a book about the fact was published.
"Karayuki-san" signified Japanese young prostitutes who worked abroad before WWⅡ. "Kara" of this word vaguely means foreign country and "yuki" is equivalent to "go" in Japanese.
The major reason they had to work like this was poverty. During those times, a lot of Japanese were very poor so girls were counted on as breadwinners. Also until then in Japan, the registered prostitute system, kind of a managing system to keep women in bawdy houses officially, had already established, so it was very common to sell their daughters for their living. Actually almost all of the girls came from poor families like in farm villages or fishing ones.
The people that introduced the girls to overseas brothels were called as "pimps", who went around poor villages to buy adolescent girls from their parents by lying such as "for just working at a hotel abroad". Later, by selling the girls to brothels, pimps got much charges.
Principal countries where Karayuki-san worked were China, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Borneo since at that time, there were many demands from Western militaries that colonized some Asian countries. Karayuki-san were popular among western customers because they were obedient and never thought stealing customer's belongings unlike other country's prosecutes.
The girls who kept remitting to their families were able to be heard by their families in Japan, but there were some girls who suddenly vanished. In such cases, the family couldn't know whether her daughter was alive or not.
Karayuki-san's average life span was around 20 years old. After they were sold, they died of some diseases like malaria, venereal disease and opium and so on. Then many girls of them were buried under foreign lands hoping to go back to their home country.
Even though WWⅡ was over, for a long time the beingness of Karayuki-san didn't come to the light because it was considered as Japan's shame. Hence it was since 1972 that this history have known by many people when a book about the fact was published.
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