A leading expert on Japan’s wartime sex slavery has critiqued Harvard law professor John Mark Ramseyer’s paper that says women sent to Japanese military brothels during World War Two were contracted prostitutes.

Yoshiaki Yoshimi, professor emeritus at Chuo University, said during an online seminar hosted by Japanese civic group “Fight for Justice” that it’s difficult to recognize Ramseyer’s paper as an academic thesis. 

Yoshimi noted Ramseyer failed to mention that a 1938 Japanese ministry notice on recruiting women to military brothels was intended for Japanese women and not women in territories occupied by Imperial Japan. 

Ramseyer based his claims in the paper on this 1938 document.

Yoshimi also denounced Ramseyer for not mentioning that the Japanese Home Ministry did not categorize the transfer of sex slaves as a type of human trafficking aimed at transferring people to foreign countries.  

The professor also said Ramseyer’s paper did not mention that the Japanese government and military established and maintained the sex slavery system.