Slavery Biographies | Haksun Kim Biography

Born 1924
Manchuria, China

Comfort woman (prostitute)
for the Japanese military

Haksun Kim was one of an estimated 200,000 women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during its Fifteen Year War on eastern Asia (1930-45). The story of Kim's tragic life as a Korean "comfort woman" was originally published in Korea in a 1993 book, The Korean Comfort Women Who Were Coercively Dragged Away for the Military. It is one of nineteen life stories that were collected and published by the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. Kim relates her abduction and enslavement by the Japanese military in a chapter of the English version of the book (True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women), "Bitter Memories I Am Loath To Recall."