A U.S. congressional think tank has highlighted the victimhood of the women involved in Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement. 

In its report, "Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress", updated earlier this week, the Congressional Research Service(CRS) noted the “comfort women” issue in a section on Japan’s foreign policy, saying it is a notable element of South Koreans’ grievance over Japan’s colonial rule. 

It said the so-called comfort women is a “literal translation of the Japanese euphemism” and that they were “forced to provide sexual services for Japanese soldiers during the imperial military’s conquest and colonization of several Asian countries in the 1930s and 1940s.” 

Such a definition stands in contrast to claims made by the Japanese Far-right and most recently by Harvard law professor John Mark Ramseyer who wrote that those women were willing, contracted prostitutes.  

The CRS said the issue is becoming more visible in the U.S. due in part to Korean American activist groups and introduced their activities, including the construction of monuments in California and New Jersey and the passage of a resolution at the New York State Senate. 

The CRS had made no mention of the issue in its report on U.S.-Japan relations posted in February.