5 thoughts on “Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA)

  1. shinichi Post author

    Recreation and Amusement Association

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreation_and_Amusement_Association

    The Recreation and Amusement Association (特殊慰安施設協会, Tokushu Ian Shisetsu Kyōkai), lit. ’Special Comfort Facility Association’ or RAA, was the largest of the organizations established by Japanese authorities to provide organized prostitution to prevent rapes and sexual violence by Allied occupation troops on the general population, and to create other leisure facilities for occupying Allied troops immediately following World War II. The RAA “recruited” 55,000 women and was short-lived.

    Background

    On August 21, 1945, Japanese authorities decided to set up a RAA for the benefit of Allied occupation troops. In fact at that time, the Home Ministry had already sent a directive to prefectural governors and police chiefs on August 18 ordering them to make preparations for “comfort facilities” in areas that the Allied occupation troops would be stationed. These facilities (which included dance halls, restaurants, and bars in addition to brothels) were to be staffed by women already involved in the “water trade” prostitution system for preventing sexual violence to Japanese women and girls. In Okinawa, Allied military troops are estimated to have raped 10,000 Japanese women during World War II. Japanese authorities set up brothels to reduce sexual assault by Allied occupation troops. They thought it would be possible to reduce sexual violence by Allied occupation troops even slightly.

    Some 50,000 women, most of them prostitutes, worked for the RAA. The first brothel, named Komachien Garden and employing 150 women, was opened on September 20, 1945. RAA brothels were placed off limits in March 1946, after just seven months of operation, to stop the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, and closed down shortly thereafter.

    Establishment

    Although arrangements in most of the country were left to local officials and police departments, in the case of the Tokyo area, which was to host the largest number of foreign troops by far, a different approach was taken. Nobuya Saka, Superintendent-General of the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, met with Hamajirō Miyazawa and Genjirō Nomoto, the heads of the Tokyo Restaurant Association (東京料理飲食業組合, Tōkyō Ryōri Inshokugyō Kumiai), and asked them to help make arrangements for the soon to arrive troops. Miyazawa and Nomoto used their connections to gather together a group of representatives of the nightclub, bar, and brothel industries. These representatives then met with the police on the 21st where they were formally asked to establish “comfort facilities”, but to conceal the government’s role as much as possible. On August 23, these men formed the “Special Comfort Facilities Association” (renamed the Recreation and Amusement Association shortly later).

    The RAA utilized the patriotic language of the war years in its operations, stressing the “selfless” nature of its employees. At the inauguration of the RAA (which was attended by bureaucrats and police officials), an “oath” was read:

    And so we unite and go forward to where our beliefs lead us, and through the sacrifice of several thousands of “Okichis of our era” build a breakwater to hold back the raging waves and defend and nurture the purity of our race, becoming as well an invisible underground pillar at the root of the postwar social order… we are but offering ourselves for the defense of the national polity.

    The “Okichi” referenced was the possibly legendary maid of Townsend Harris, the first American consul in Japan from 1856 to 1861, who was pressured into becoming his consort.

    The organization was funded through unsecured loans from the Japan Industrial Development Bank (日本勧業銀行, Nippon Kangyō Ginkō) arranged by Hayato Ikeda, director of the Ministry of Finance’s Tax Bureau. 33 million yen were loaned to the RAA, which then distributed shares to its members. The RAA established its first brothel on August 28: the Komachien in Ōmori. By December 1945, the RAA owned 34 facilities, 16 of which were “comfort stations”. The total number of women employed by the RAA amounted to 55,000 at its peak.

    Recruitment

    As noted above, the women staffing comfort facilities were intended to be those already involved in the sex trade. In practice, there were nowhere near enough prostitutes available, especially in the Tokyo area. The government had cracked down on prostitution late in the war, and many women had fled or been evacuated to the countryside following heavy Allied bombing of strategic centers and residential areas. Tokyo’s most famous red-light district, Yoshiwara, had been reduced from a prewar population of 2,000 prostitutes to only a few dozen by the end of the war. Therefore, it was inevitable that efforts were made to recruit from the general population, a tactic that was authorized by the police.

    The RAA recruited widely, using carefully worded advertisements posted in front of their offices and in newspapers. These boasted of generous work conditions (free accommodation, meals, and clothes) while avoiding details concerning the nature of the work. Given the widespread poverty and food shortages at the time, and the large number of orphaned and widowed young women, the job offers appeared quite attractive. Most women left upon learning of the deception, but some stayed.

    In addition to prostitutes, the RAA recruited a large number of “dancers” who were paid to dance with soldiers. Over time, the distinction between “dancer” and “prostitute” became blurred.

    Heavy use was made of independent brokers to recruit women. These brokers, many of whom were affiliated with the yakuza, used less ethical recruitment techniques. The Women’s Volunteer Corps (女子挺身隊, Jōshi Teishin-tai), a government organization for mobilizing girls and women ages 14–25 for work in factories, was a popular target as many of these women were left unemployed and stranded by the end of the war. Yuki Tanaka reports that groups of these women would be deceived and delivered, unknowing, to brothels.

    Despite these deceptive recruitment practices, most women working in the comfort stations ultimately consented to work as prostitutes. There were also women who were unable to leave their brothels, however, because they had been sold by their impoverished families or because they owed money to the brothel. Some comfort stations used “company store” tactics and loan advances (前借, maegari) to keep women in debt and unable to leave, something a contemporary GHQ official compared to “enslavement”. Contracts forcing women to work at brothels in repayment of debts were eventually abolished by a SCAP order (SCAPIN 642) in January 1946, although some Japanese officials were skeptical of how well such a prohibition could be enforced.

    Working conditions

    When using the RAA brothels, GIs received a ticket (costing ¥100) (approx. 8 cents at the contemporary unofficial rate, equivalent to $1.05 in 2019) upon entry which was then given to the women who serviced them. The women, who usually had between 15 and 60 clients per day, would take the tickets to the station’s accounting office each morning where they would receive ¥50 for each ticket. This 50% rate was considerably better than that for prewar licensed prostitutes, who commonly only received 25% of their price. For example, on the first day, one Japanese worker had 47 American customers and received almost 2 US dollars.

    Women working in RAA facilities faced the usual sexual violence common to prostitution in the sex trade. Women working as dancers were especially vulnerable targets for rape. Additionally, military police and GIs sometimes demanded free service or refunds. The power inequality between Japanese police and Allied soldiers made it difficult for the women to complain. Many of the victims were induced to create a “Labour Union”, which then allowed them to be further targeted as the Korean war developed.

    Expansion
    On October 14, the Japanese police lifted their restrictions on brothels and night clubs, a de facto endorsement of the non-RAA sex industry catering to Occupation troops. The RAA facilities had also been illegal, of course, but had enjoyed police protection for obvious reasons. By the end of November, there were 25 non-RAA comfort stations employing 1,500 women in Tokyo (compared to “well over 2,000” for the RAA.) A December 29 GHQ estimate placed the number of prostitutes in Tokyo at 6,000 (not counting street prostitutes, who far outnumbered the number of women working in brothels.)

    GHQ and disease control

    From the beginning of the Occupation, some Allied military officials cooperated with the Japanese government’s system. According to the governors of Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures, American commanders contacted them in September 1945 and requested the establishment of brothels for their troops, offering US military police help if necessary. American medical officers established prophylactic stations in red-light districts and inside the larger brothels that distributed tens of thousands of condoms a week.

    Despite these precautions, the problem of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs; primarily gonorrhea and syphilis) became a serious public health issue. By early 1946, nearly a quarter of all US occupation forces were estimated to be infected, and nearly half of some units. The Australian 34th Infantry Brigade had a rate of 55% infection.

    In response, GHQ imposed strict STD check procedures for prostitutes, placed certain brothels with high rates of infection off-limits to troops, and helped re-establish clinics and laboratories (many of which had been destroyed during the war) to diagnose infections. Most importantly, the 8th Army authorized the free dispersal of penicillin to infected prostitutes despite a serious shortage of the drug in the US and orders from Washington that it only be given to Japanese “as a life saving measure.”

    End of the system

    Not all those in the occupation forces accepted the widespread patronizing of Japanese-sanctioned brothels by US troops. Some unit commanders considered prostitution an “endemic problem that plagued their troops” and tried (with limited success) to prevent their men from fraternizing with the Japanese. By early 1946 military chaplains were condemning SCAP’s cooperation, citing violations of War Department policies and the moral degradation of US troops it caused.

    The complaints embarrassed Gen. MacArthur, head of the occupation forces, and SCAP issued an order (SCAPIN 642) on January 21 ending licensed brothels for being “in contravention of the ideals of democracy”. The following day a GHQ public health official wrote MacArthur with his concerns that news of the STD problem and GHQ cooperation with prostitution would cause problems as they spread back home. SCAPIN 642 ended the RAA’s operations, but did not affect “voluntary prostitution” by individuals. As such, non-RAA brothel owners were easily able to circumvent the order by, for example, “renting” space in their former brothels to “voluntary” prostitutes. Ultimately, GHQ responded by making all brothels and other facilities offering prostitution off-limits to Allied personnel on March 25, 1946.

    The immediate effects of the end of authorized brothel prostitution was the sudden unemployment of thousands of women, many of whom went on to become “panpan” street prostitutes. The dispersal of prostitution made it harder for GHQ to control STDs and also caused an increase in sexual violence by GIs, from an average of 40 women a day before the SCAP order to an estimated 330 per day immediately after, however these figures cannot be independently confirmed.

    By November 1946, the Japanese government had introduced the new akasen (赤線, “red-line”) system in which prostitution was permissible in certain designated areas.

    Comfort Woman terminology

    Because the RAA and related systems were inspired by Japanese wartime experiences, their structures and terminologies were based on the pre-existing wartime comfort women system. Brothels were referred to with the euphemisms “comfort stations” and “comfort facilities”, and prostitutes were referred to as “comfort women”. Because of this, many English-language and Japanese scholars of the RAA continue to use those terms in their research.

    To what degree the two systems are actually comparable is a matter of debate among historians, however. Some, such as Michael Molasky and Yuki Tanaka, stress the “striking” similarities between the two and refer to the RAA as “systematic exploitation”. Chung-hee Sarah Soh, by contrast, notes that women in the RAA were provided with better living conditions than their wartime counterparts. Sarah Kovner states that a difference between the two systems is that RAA members could not be forced into prostitution for Allied occupation troops. Bob Wakabayashi writes though that coercive recruitment was employed in a manner similar to the wartime system.

    Ikuhiko Hata indicates that the two systems were comparable in both methods of recruitment and administration in spite of the difference of the presence or absence of intermediary people.

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  2. shinichi Post author

    乱暴なプレイで失神、娘の血でふすまに「very good」と落書き…東京各地に点在した“特殊慰安施設”の実態とは
    『花街の引力』より #1

    by 三浦 展

    https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/45187?page=2

    「アメリカの兵隊と親善のために交際をするのです」

     大正、昭和の華やいだ、あるいはのんびりした歴史とは異なり、戦後の大井海岸は米軍の進駐に備えて日本政府がRAAを設置した町として記憶されなければならない。

     RAAは日本語では「特殊慰安施設協会」といったが、特殊ということは特殊浴場と同じで、ただの慰安ではない。米兵に性を売ったのだ。日本は江戸時代以来、吉原を公的な売春施設としてきたが、敗戦直後も国が一般女性の貞操を米兵から守るという理由で、政府が三業地などの役員を集めてRAAをつくらせたのである。米兵が日本の女性に暴行をすると思ったのは、日本兵が侵略先で暴行をしていたからだと推測するのが自然だろう。

     RAAは広告を打った。「新日本女性に告ぐ! 戦後処理の国家的緊急施設の一端として、駐屯軍慰安の大事業に参加する新日本女性の率先協力を求む! 女事務員募集。年齢十八歳以上二十五歳迄。宿舎、被服、食糧当方支給」。敗戦後まもない8月28日のことである。

     女性たちが集まったのは銀座。「幸楽」という中華料理店を警察が接収し、「福助」という食堂を買収してRAA本部の事務所となった。

     米軍が上陸する8月28日までに、RAAは1370人の女性を集めた。焼け跡で仕事も食べ物もない女性たちがどんどん集まった。その9割は裸足でやってきたという。ほとんどが素人娘だった。

     集まった女性たちには、まず飯を食わせた。食えるだけで大変なことだった。食後、女性たちは、国家の大事業とは売春であると知らされて仰天した。

     ある女性は、「ダンサーか事務員と思ってきたのですが」と質問すると、「お国のためになる仕事なのです。誰に恥じることもありません。慰安婦といっても、戦争中と違って、アメリカの兵隊と親善のために交際をするのです。お互いに仲よくやる仕事です」と回答された。

     だが、食っていくためにはしかたなかった。給料は高かった。女性たちのうち、まず50人がRAAの1号店である大井の「小町園」に送り込まれた。

    吉原、新宿、千住は白人兵用、亀戸、新小岩、玉の井は黒人兵用

     女性たちはトラックに乗せられて大井に向かった。焼け残った料亭はすべて買収されていた。「小町園」の前には朝からすでに米兵のジープが行列をなしていた。

     女性たちは到着すると、まず世話役の女性が「まだ男を知らない人はいますか」と聞いた。「応募された方には処女の方が多いのです。日本の女性を守るために、一身を犠牲にする覚悟で、清い体で応募してくださった方もあるのです。どうぞ経験者はよく指導してあげてください」。手を挙げた女性は30人ほどいた。「はい、その方たちは、あとで私の部屋に来てください。お教えしますから」と世話役の女性は言った。

     それから女性たちは風呂に入れられ、消毒器や手洗いの設備を見て回った。着物は三越、白木屋で焼け残ったものをすべて差し押さえてあったので、それを着た。化粧品は資生堂から押さえてあった。月島の内閣統計局の倉庫に差し押さえた物資を入れていたという。そもそも最初に慰安施設として接収しようとしたのが日本橋の三越だった! だが、そんな目立つところに米兵が集まると周辺の婦女子も暴行されるから、施設は分散立地させよと警視庁がいうので、大森のほか、立川、福生 、三鷹などの多摩地域も含めて東京都内各地、また箱根 ・強羅の常盤館、熱海の観光閣にも施設ができた。

     向島の大倉喜八郎(1837~1928年)別邸(編集部注:贅を尽くした邸宅で海外の賓客を招いていた)も市川の料亭も接収されて慰安施設となった。大倉別邸や向島、人形町、白山の花街は高官用の慰安施設にされた。吉原、新宿、千住は白人兵隊用、亀戸、新小岩、玉の井は黒人兵用とされたという。

    米兵は日本の男たちよりずっとやさしかった

     翌朝からが仕事だった。料亭は畳の上にベッドを置き、床の間の柱にペンキを塗って洋式に見せたという。開店すると列をなしていた米兵たちが土足のまま障子やふすまを蹴破ってドッと上がり込んできた。ベッドだけでは足りず、広間に布団を敷いた。広間で仕切りもなしに抱き合っている者もいた。それでも女性が足りず、あぶれた米兵が暴れた。女郎屋 、芸者屋の主人たちは大金を持って田舎に行き、疎開している女性たちをどんどん買い集めてきた。米兵の巨体に驚いた女性も多かった。恐怖におびえながら、女性たちは無我夢中で米兵の相手をした。午後の閉店までに、ある女性は23人の相手をした。何日かすると1日60人の相手をする女性までいた。

     時間外にやってきて帳場女性をねじ伏せるということは日常茶飯事だった。「小町園」のある娘は膣を破られて失神した。布団は血の海で、米兵は娘の血でふすまに「very good」と落書きした。あまりのことに逃げ出す女性や発狂する女性、逃げ出して電車に飛び込み自殺をする女性もいた。

     経験のない処女では効率が悪いということで、そういう女性は向島の妓楼に回し、交換でベテランの女性を連れてきたりもした。だが、一方で、米兵の中には日本の男たちよりずっとやさしく親切だった者も多かった。米兵は鬼畜で日本の婦女子を暴行すると思ってRAAをつくった側としては拍子抜けするほどだった。男が女にあんなに親切にしなければならないのか、戦争に勝った国の男なのにと、日本の男たちはびっくりしたという

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  3. shinichi Post author

    賀川豊彦

    https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/賀川豊彦

    賀川 豊彦(1888年-1960年)は、大正・昭和期のキリスト教社会運動家、社会改良家。戦前日本の労働運動、農民運動、無産政党運動、生活協同組合運動、協同組合保険(共済)運動において、重要な役割を担った人物。日本農民組合創設者。「イエス団」創始者。キリスト教における博愛の精神を実践した「貧民街の聖者」として日本以上に世界的な知名度が高く、戦前は、現代の「三大聖人」として「カガワ、ガンジー、シュヴァイツァー」と称された。茅ヶ崎の平和学園の創始者である。

    賀川は『女性賛美と母性崇拝』(豊文書院、1937年)を著すなど、早くから女性の地位向上を説いていたが、売買春等には、宗教家としての倫理観から厳しい見方もしている。連合国軍占領下の日本において米兵による婦女子の強姦事件が多発していた頃、『婦人公論』1947年8月号で「闇の女に堕ちる女性は、多くの欠陥を持っている」とし、パンパンについては「わざと悪に接近」するような悪魔的なところがあり、「一種の変成社会における精神分裂病患者である」と指摘した。

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  4. shinichi Post author

    植村環

    https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/植村環

    植村 環(1890年-1982年)は、日本で2番目の女性の牧師で、婦人運動家である。戦後再建された日本キリスト教会の指導者でもある。

    アメリカ占領下で国内婦女子への強姦事件が絶えなかった情勢において『婦人公論』(1952年5月号)で「アメリカの寛大な統治を悦び、感謝しており」とする一方で、米兵から殺害を含む過酷な扱いを受けていた慰安婦たちに「卑しい業を廃めさせ」るよう要求したり、「パンパン」を「大方は積極的に外人を追いかけて歩き、ダニのように食いついて離れぬ種類の婦人」と述べたり、「あんなに悪性のパンパンに対しては、白人の方だって、あの位の乱暴は働きたくなりますさ」などと語るなど、売春問題を買う男ではなく売る女性の方を問題としていた。

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