Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Serial Kidnapping of Korean Women in 1930's

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Comfort women . After disregarding the walls of text by the now-blocked D.H.Lee and the obviously canvassed or sockpuppeted opinions, we're at 4 delete and 2 merge. That's consensus not to retain this as an article. The redirects allows editors to determine editorially which, if any, content merits merging from the history.  Sandstein  16:03, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Serial Kidnapping of Korean Women in 1930's

Serial Kidnapping of Korean Women in 1930's (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Revisionist history, angry tone, concentrating on individual horror stories rather than the overall issue. This is a WP:POVFORK, a non-neutral attempt to bypass the usual considerations of WP:WEIGHT and balance. It should be deleted. This article talks about the beginning of the Comfort women program, so anything salvageable should be carefully integrated with the comfort women article. Binksternet (talk) 16:05, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

• comments' I don't see relevance to Comfort women program: the test speaks of "Korean brothel operators". Staszek Lem (talk) 18:50, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

That's just it. D.H.Lee is trying to remove a very large chunk of Korean women from the mainstream narrative of the comfort women topic, by saying that these women were something else. If he succeeds, then the comfort women program is made that much smaller, and its political fallout is correspondingly smaller. D.H.Lee is aiming to smooth relations between Korea, Japan and the US. I'm all for smooth relations, but I don't think a whitewashing of history is the right way to get there. Binksternet (talk) 01:44, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. As you admitted below, Korean women constituted the majority of comfort women and they were coerced by the Korean operators and traffickers. I'm not denying that the Japanese military coerced local women in the battlefields, such as Dutch women in Indonesia and Filipino women in the Philippines. By excluding Korean women the number of comfort women coerced by the Japanese military would be smaller because that's the truth. Not because I'm whitewashing history. You have conceded that Korean women were coerced by the Korean operators below, but because you don't want the political fallout to be smaller, this article should be deleted? That makes no sense. --D.H.Lee (talk) 05:25, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

• Delete per, at a minimum, WP:POVFORK. Brianga (talk) 16:22, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not angry at all. I've simply translated the Korean newspaper articles from 1930's. Why erase crucial primary sources? If we surpress evidence, we will never realize the truth. --D.H.Lee (talk) 16:35, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on WP:SECONDARY sources, greatly preferring secondary sources to primary ones. The main problem here is that primary sources are being used by D.H.Lee to contradict the mainstream narrative of the comfort women issue. Here's the mainstream version: the United Nations Commission on Human Rights says that the comfort women case was a system of sexual slavery instituted by the Japanese military, a system which started in 1932 but was greatly expanded in 1937 and throughout World War II. Your article talks about some aspects of the comfort women program, but it is designed to contradict the mainstream view. That is what makes it a WP:POVFORK, and that's why it should be deleted. Binksternet (talk) 16:55, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

My article is not challenging the mainstream view of other women. The Japanese military did coerce hundreds of local women in the battlefields, for example Dutch women in Indonesia and Filipino women in the Philippines. What my article is pointing out is Korean women weren't coerced by the Japanese military. The Korean activists' narrative "Tens of thousands of Korean women were coerced by the Japanese military" is not based on fact. And many of the members of the activist group have arrest records as North Korean spies. Please read the following article including footnote #9. It will answer all your questions. http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com/2014/10/summary-of-professor-park-yuhas-book.html --D.H.Lee (talk) 17:12, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Your first sentence says that you are not challenging the mainstream view, but the rest of your comment goes on to obviously challenge the mainstream view. Per WP:POVFORK Wikipedia does not have multiple articles giving different views of the same subject, but works by consensus to create one article which reflects the consensus of reliable secondary sources, and, if that consensus is not overwhelming, also covers minority views supported by reliable secondary sources. A blog post such as you link above is not a reliable source. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 18:46, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

• delete as original research. There are no sources which specifically single out the article subject, namely "... in 1930s". Staszek Lem (talk) 18:50, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Since all of you have misunderstood this issue, let me copy the link to what Binksternet and I have discussed in his talk. It will show why Korean women and other comfort women are two distinct issues, and it has something to do with North Korea. So please do read the whole thing.　https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Binksternet#Serial_Kidnapping_of_Korean_Women_in_1930.27s 　

If you don't like that blog, then read The New York Times article and others. They address the same point as the blog. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/19/world/asia/south-korea-comfort-women-park-yu-ha.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=2 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2009/05/10/books/book-reviews/continuing-controversy-of-comfort-women/#.VLzLMpX9mcx

. --D.H.Lee (talk) 00:47, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Please also read the diary written by a comfort station worker analyzed by Professor Choe Kil-sung. It may surprise you.　http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Chapter-51.pdf　For your information men who appear in this diary have Japanese names, but they are all Koreans. This diary was discovered in 2013, and it certainly sheds new light on Korean comfort women. Please realize that the guy who witnessed the day to day operation of Korean comfort stations should know more about Korean comfort women than all of you. Here are the names of comfort stations and their owners that appear the diary.　http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=0189045814.jpg　--D.H.Lee (talk) 01:03, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Here is a memoir written by a former Korean comfort woman, Mun Ok-chu. (English translation at the bottom)　https://www.facebook.com/notes/606052749474399/ --D.H.Lee (talk) 01:19, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Your analysis is contrary to the great mass of research on the topic. For instance, Professor Toshiyuki Tanaka writes in his book Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation that coerced Korean women constituted the majority of the comfort women, and that local Koreans of every stripe were complicit in getting girls and women into the Japanese comfort women program. Binksternet (talk) 01:39, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem with Tanaka is he can't read Korean, so he hasn't had access to any sources in Korean. He can't read the Korean newspaper articles in 1930's, he can't read the diary written by a Korean comfort station worker. It's amazing to me that someone pretends to be an expert and writes a book without being able to read sources. Please also note that Tanaka was witnessed several times in attending Japan Communist Party annual conference, and he has also visited North Korea in the past. Again I agree with you in that local Koreans of every stripe were complicit in getting girls and women into the Japanese comfort women program. In wars, soldiers sometimes rape innocent women. To prevent this from happening, the Japanese military asked businessmen to recruit prostitutes and operate comfort stations. The Japanese military sent orders to comfort station operators and traffickers not to recruit unwilling women.　http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=8155355946.jpg　Japanese businessmen followed the order and only recruited willing prostitutes in Japan. But Korean operators didn't follow the orders. Many of Korean comfort women's fathers had debts from alcohol, gambling, etc. and sold their daughters without daughters' consent. The Korean comfort station operators took over their debts, and depending on the amount of the debt, each woman's contract length was determined. Korean women were not allowed to leave until their debts were paid off. --D.H.Lee (talk) 02:18, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I know that the communism is dead in the West, but it is very much alive here in East Asia. Communist agents from North Korea and China are everywhere in South Korea and Japan. Typical example of that is Tanaka and Yoshimi. They are the posterboys for them. Here is a photo of a Korean school classroom in Tokyo.　http://www.fastpic.jp/images.php?file=2644588014.jpg　Schools like that exist everywhere in Japan. It's madness.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 02:36, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Let me summarize

(1) The activist group Chong Dae Hyup (many of its members have arrest records as North Korean spies) has done such a great job of spreading the false narrative on Korean comfort women that it became the mainstream narrative.

(2) Because of this false narrative, the South Koreans hate the Japanese so much　http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/08/21/korean-independence-day-continues-to-stir-the-pot-for-japan-korea-relations/　that they don't want to cooperate with Japan on security issues.　http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator/the-strategic-cost-of-south-koreas-japan-bashing/news-story/9aedca016ccd0b2f775f95e3b03838a5

(3) All of you, by refusing to look at anything but the mainstream narrative, are unknowingly complicit in activists' scheme.

(4) North Korea says "Thank you." --D.H.Lee (talk) 03:48, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Here is a great article by the U.S. Ambassador James Glassman

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/05/10/japan-vs-us-no-japan-is-not-killing-us-were-killing-japan-our-staunchest-asian-ally.html　--D.H.Lee (talk) 06:08, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

That Fox News article says nothing about the serial kidnapping of Korean girls and women during the 1930s. You appear to be making this deletion discussion into a political advocacy of US–Japan–Korea solidarity against North Korea. That strategy is not going to save your article. What you need to do is find reliable secondary sources talking about the exact issue of serial kidnapping of Korean girls and women during the 1930s. Binksternet (talk) 06:29, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Allow me to provide three sources. First, I quote from the following website.　http://www.sdh-fact.com/essay-article/630/

Police Crackdowns on Abduction Crimes in Annexed Korea
As Fig.2 through 7 of the Appendix clearly show, newspaper articles published during the
Annexation Era indicate that Korean Police made efforts to crack down on kidnappings and
abductions. Fig.2 means that a little girl ran into a police station as she considered that the
police was reliable and trustworthy.
It appears that kidnappers and abductors were Koreans, and so the blame for Korean crimes is
being shifted to the Japanese Army/Authority.
The following table shows the total number of policemen in Annexed Korea as of 1938. The table
shows approximately half of the lower-ranking police officers of the Korean Police was
comprised of Koreans.
10
Koreans Japanese
Inspector 9 62
Captain 89 388
Lieutenant 157 738
Police officers 8,542 11,784
(Source: Korea Governor-General Office of Statistics, 1938)
Provincial Parliament Election Results of 1933
Fig. 8 of the Appendix is a newspaper article from the Asahi-Shimbun Korea published on May
11, 1933. It shows election results of 13 Korean provincial parliaments. According to the article,
approximately 80% of the newly elected parliament members were Koreans. (Korean names
usually consist of three Kanji-characters while Japanese names usually consist of four or five
Kanji-characters.)
Under such a governing body, how is it possible for Japanese officials to “draft 200,000 Korean
women as military sexual slaves for the use of the Japanese Imperial Army” as the
Coomaraswamy Report claims in Paragraph 61?
The newspaper articles and statistics clearly demonstrate that Korean Police, which conducted
crackdowns on kidnappings and abductions in order to provide security and peace for the local
people, is unlikely to be the culprit behind the forced recruitment of 200,000 women and girls.
Moreover, no entity or organization can commit forced recruitment of 200,000 women and girls
under the eyes of the Korean Police and/or Provincial Governments.
Japanese Military Order 745
Fig. 9 of the Appendix is an order issued by the Ministry of the Army on March 4, 1938. The title
states: “Subject: Regarding Recruitment of Girls and Women for Military Comfort Stations.”
The essential part of the order is the latter half, the translation of which is:
“Inappropriate recruiters and disorganized manner of recruitment may cause the recruitment
methods to be classified as kidnapping which leads to the disgrace of Imperial Army such as
police investigation. This notice is to raise the awareness of such problems relating to the
recruitment of women. Army Headquarters require your sufficient care to avoid errors that may
cause social problems. Under close cooperation with Military Police and police stations of the
municipalities involved, efforts should be made to maintain the reliability and authority of the
11
Military.”
From this order, you may discover that the Imperial Army of Japan considered kidnapping of
girls by the recruiters/procurers was the disgrace that would lead to the police investigation and
eventually cause the loss of “reliability and authority of the Military.” In fact, the Army order
required sufficient care of girls and prevention of social problems by NOT using inappropriate
recruiters who may resort to kidnapping. The only logical conclusion that can be derived from
these facts is that civilian and army military police forces made efforts of policing the
unscrupulous recruiters and/or procurers and it is very unlikely that the Japanese
Army/Authority committed the offence of slave hunting of girls that would certainly cause
“social problems.”
YOSHIMI Yoshiaki, a Japanese researcher well-known for his deep-rooted hatred toward the
Japanese Army/Authority used this Army HQ Order No.745 as evidence of “military
involvement” in 1992 in his malignant attempts to damage the reputation of the Japanese
Army/Authority.
Of course, the Japanese Military was involved in the installation of comfort stations in occupied
territories in China and South East Asia and provided transportation to and from the occupied
territories because they were all war-zones. Medical care was also needed to prevent venereal
disease in order to keep the fighting capability of soldiers. (The Army Expedition to Siberia in
1918 originated the use of comfort stations. During the Expedition, out of 70,000 army men,
10,000 men were crippled due to venereal disease. This experience caused the Army to consider
the need for comfort stations.)
How is it possible for the Japanese Army or Authority to forcibly mobilize 200,000 women and
girls, who were under constant watch of so many Koreans employed as police officers and local
government officials? If they were kidnapped, there should have been violent resistance by their
fathers, brothers, or boyfriends. At least there should have been numerous eyewitness accounts
in police archives or private diaries. However, no such evidence has been presented by the
Korean Government.
Korean procurers many have kidnapped women and girls and Korean recruiters or brothel
operators may have resorted to “coaxing and intimidating.” However, these matters had nothing
to do with the Japanese Army and/or Authority.

There is also a Wikipedia in Japanese for "Serial Kidnapping of Korean Women in 1930s"

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%9D%E9%AE%AE%E5%8D%97%E9%83%A8%E9%80%A3%E7%B6%9A%E5%B0%91%E5%A5%B3%E8%AA%98%E6%8B%90%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6

Use google translate to understand what it says.

Here is an article in Korean that analyzes "Serial Kidnapping of Korean Women in 1930s"

http://gall.dcinside.com/board/view/?id=history&no=1283822

Again use google translate.

All three sources are in accordance with my article.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 08:29, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

I found an article in English that translated the above article in Korean.

http://koreannewsreports.blogspot.com/　--D.H.Lee (talk) 08:43, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

• Comment

Be sure to remove the correct kernel version and not the current one! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 240F:99:2DFF:1:3854:9792:A537:7A15 (talk) 11:29, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

• Delete as an obvious WP:POVFORK. If the creator wants to include more reliably sourced content about Korean involvement in coercing women into prostitution under Japanese occupation the place to argue for that is Talk:Comfort women. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 12:20, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Do not delete as this article and comfort women are unrelated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 240F:99:2DFF:1:3854:9792:A537:7A15 (talk) 13:19, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Do not delete this article is extremely important as it is based on the primary sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelic-feline (talk • contribs) 15:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on WP:SECONDARY sources. If a story must be told using primary sources, then the author should write a book and publish it. Wikipedia is not for the first appearance of a topic. Binksternet (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Secondary source provided above.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 23:38, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Do not delete obviously this article is only presenting a fact that there was a series of cases reported in Korean newspapers in the past, making no judgment on it, making no reference to comfort women. Besides, if the fact presented here seems to “contradict the mainstream narrative of the comfort women issue,” it’s “the mainstream narrative” that has a problem, not this article. Therefore, WP:POVFORK does not apply in this case at all.--Lettheangelscry (talk) 01:07, 18 September 2016 (UTC)— Lettheangelscry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Do not delete This article doesn't say Korean women worked in Japanese comfort women program. Hence WP:POVFORK doesn't apply here. --CJHudson (talk) 05:47, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Merge with Comfort Women. If there is good information here, with reliable sources, it should be placed there to give another POV to that article. ABF99 (talk) 07:20, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

The Korean brothels in China and Manchuria may have served the civilians there. This article doesn't mention that they served the Japanese military. Thus it is not appropriate at all to merge this with comfort women. --D.H.Lee (talk) 07:40, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Comment: We now have three users that have jumped in here with 'do not delete' who are brand-new users on Wikipedia, with no editing experience aside from these comments. Not to be rude, but I smell socks.ABF99 (talk) 07:20, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

ABF99, going by a quick look at your account and the editing experience you displayed from the beginning, I find it peculiar that you would be calling out others as socks. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:17, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, Well I have to admit I feel somewhat complimented by the fact that you think in my relatively short time here (about a year) i display editing experience. I did spend a lot of time in Afd discussions before I even attempted my first article, which was a good way to learn about Wiki policies. But I am still learning. One of the things I have learned in this discussion is that you and D.H.Lee are right---I jumped in prematurely with a snarky comment about socks when I could have assumed good faith and worded my reservations about the three new accounts differently. ABF99 (talk) 18:08, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

ABF99, I'll be frank: It is highly unlikely for a new editor to pop in AfD discussions for their early edits, like you did, and you very much remind me of an editor I encountered a number of times. I'm leaving that matter at that for now. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:38, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Don't judge users based on their experience. Judge them on what they have to say. The people who only browse usually may have felt that injustice was being done to a good article. I think your comment is a bit out of line. --D.H.Lee (talk) 07:50, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Users who comment at deletion discussions are almost always examined for previous history. It is quite common to see sockpuppet accounts appear at deletion discussions to vote. It's so common that some advice is given about that case at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to contribute where it says that the "use of multiple accounts to reinforce your opinions is absolutely forbidden," and that such accounts will be permanently blocked. The issue is also highlighted at Wikipedia:Signs of sock puppetry#Casting additional votes. Basically, a well-reasoned opinion will carry more weight than the number of votes, and it only takes one well-reasoned opinion. Binksternet (talk) 14:36, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you insinuating that I used multiple accounts? I really can't let you get away with accusations like that. Isn't there a way for us to ask Wikipedia to track down the IP addresses of those comments? Does anyone know a way to verify that those comments were not made by the same person? When we find out that those comments were not made by me, you will owe me an apology, Binksternet. Again I would appreciate any suggestion so that we can get to the bottom of this. --D.H.Lee (talk) 15:23, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

It has become apparent that the issue here is whether this article is related to the Japanese comfort women program. Can anyone point out the part of this article that makes reference to the Japanese comfort women program? If someone can do that, then this article should be deleted, and kidnapping of Korean women should be discussed at comfort women Wikipedia. If not, this article should remain. That is one well-reasoned opinion. --D.H.Lee (talk) 15:45, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

You made the connection yourself here, here, here, here, here and here. I don't know why you would ask to see proof when you made the connection explicitly. Binksternet (talk) 16:10, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Whatever the article said in the past doesn't matter. The issue is whether someone who sees this page in the current form relates it to comfort women. We are discussing whether the article in the current form should be saved, not the past ones. --D.H.Lee (talk) 16:23, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

FYI, you are welcome to defend yourself at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/D.H.Lee. I'm sorry, but this AFD has been very suspicious, and I do believe you are socking. Sro23 (talk) 15:28, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with this. Do you know if Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/D.H.Lee can verify the IP addresses of those comments? I just want to find a way to get to the bottom of this now that some of you think that I used multiple accounts. --D.H.Lee (talk) 15:45, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

One of the possibilities is that someone else is making sockpuppet accounts, not D.H.Lee. It's also possible that meatpuppet accounts are appearing at D.H.Lee's request. Binksternet (talk) 15:38, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

I made no such request. If someone else made sockpuppet accounts, I have no control over it. --D.H.Lee (talk) 15:49, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

So again I pose the question. Can anyone point out the part of this article that makes reference to the Japanese comfort women program? If someone can do that, then this article should be deleted, and kidnapping of Korean women should be discussed at comfort women Wikipedia. Thank you & good night! --D.H.Lee (talk) 16:02, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

D.H.Lee, All of the links you have provided to defend your article discuss the comfort women program, yet your article does not. Thus the article as a stand-alone list is incomplete; it provides no context, and is not in its present form IMHO useful to an encyclopedia. As another point of view to the Comfort Women article, it could be useful. That point of view is backed up by reliable sources, as you have noted. The Japanese Wikipedia article on kidnappings of Korean women in the 1930's that you linked to is very different: it provides a great deal of historical background, discusses the relations between Japan and Korea, and includes referenced discussions of the comfort women program. ABF99 (talk) 17:37, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

The issue is not whether the article currently makes reference to the comfort women program, but whether any article about forced prostitution in Korea in the 1930s should exist without making reference to that program. I have no doubt that many Korean men abused these women, but we should cover the subject in the context of a military occupation by Japan in which such abuse of women by Japanese soldiers was commonplace, and officially encouraged. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 20:01, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

ABF99 & 86.17.222.157, I was doing two things. One was to defend my article. The other was as a historian in Japan-Korea history I was providing knowledge on comfort women since most of you misunderstand the subject. The following are what most historians agree.

(1) The majority of comfort women were Korean, my compatriots. Binksternet says 80%. I don't think it was that high but let's just use that number and 100,000 as the total number of comfort women for now. So there were 80,000 Korean comfort women. Historians agree that most Korean women were recruited by the Korean comfort station operators and Korean traffickers with deception and force. The Japanese military sent orders to the Korean operators not to recruit unwilling women but they didn't obey the orders.

(2) The Japanese comfort women constituted about 18%. So 18,000 Japanese women. Historians agree that all Japanese women volunteered.

(3) 2% for other women, local women in the battlefields such as Dutch women in Indonesia and Filipino women in the Philippines. Historians agree that lower ranked Japanese soldiers did coerce local women in the battlefields in violation of the Japanese military rules. Those soldiers were court-martialed and some executed.

If you do the simple math, over 95% of the women were not coerced by the Japanese military. That is the mainstream narrative among most historians. The primary and secondary sources support that narrative. But comfort women wikipedia's narrative paints an entirely different picture. Comfort women wikipedia is like a cult. It is determined to create an absolute evil out of the Japanese military, and its narrative is most if not all comfort women were coerced by the Japanese military. It does not allow any opinions against the cult by erasing them immediately. I've edited a few times, but they were all erased right away accusing me that I was a revisionist and it didn't fit the comfort women wikipedia narrative. It cherrypicks a small number of scholars like Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Yuki Tanaka, both of whom are members of Japan Communist Party and notorious Japan haters.

This article initially had references to the Japanese comfort women program. But since most of you were trying to merge this into comfort women wikipedia cult, I edited out those references. ABF99, if you are saying that I should put back references to the Japanese comfort women program and also provide historical background like the Japanese wikipedia article on kidnappings of Korean women in the 1930's (which has existed for 7 years) so that it adds another point of view to the cult, I can do that. Only if people here are open to another point of view... But most of you here, who has done little or no research on the comfort women issue, will scream "merge" again. I've research the comfort women issue for over 20 years going through every primary and secondary sources in Korean, Japanese and English and talking with Koreans who were alive in the 1930's. Perhaps my downfall is that I know too much ;) I am asking others besides ABF99, if I make those additions to provide more background to the kidnapping of Korean women, will you welcome it or will you delete it?　--D.H.Lee (talk) 23:07, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

What this subtopic might be about

The kidnapping or abduction of Korean girls and women into prostitution is a part of the history of Korea under Japanese rule, and it leads directly into the Japanese comfort women system of World War II. Professor Toshiyuki "Yuki" Tanaka of Hiroshima City University wrote about this in 2002, in the scholarly book Japan's Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II. He wrote:

One cannot sufficiently explain the establishment and operation of the comfort women system, in particular the sexual exploitation of Korean women in that system, by viewing it from the perspective of military history alone. It becomes comprehensible only when we examine how the trafficking of young women came to be widely practiced in Korea well before the military brothel system was established. This trafficking was a by-product of Japan's various policies of colonizing the Korean peninsula.

Tanaka described how in the 1910s the Japanese erased the traditional Korean landholding system of tenant farmers, creating in the process hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants where there had been just as many semi-independent tenant farmers. This, combined with bad weather and poor harvests, created a terrible crisis in unemployment, which reached 85% in some rural areas during the mid-1930s.
Faced with no other prospects, many Korean girls and women turned to prostitution, many working in brothels which operated under license by the Korean government. Others worked in restaurants that also offered sex services. Poor families would sell their daughters into sex work for a small fee. When Japan invaded Manchuria and China, Japanese and Korean brothel and restaurant operators moved their businesses to be near military units in those areas. These brothels were brought into the military comfort women system, managed by the military so that they could contain the spread of venereal disease among the troops, and to prevent local women from being raped by soldiers. By 1938, however, the existing supply of comfort women was too small to meet the demand, and the Japanese military became more active in the procurement of women.
All of this is background to the comfort women topic, and it is also a critical element of the history of Korea colonized by Japan. If it were to become its own topic, we would have to see that secondary sources exist which treat the whole matter as its own topic. It is insufficient to show secondary sources reporting on just one of the various kidnapping crime rings. Binksternet (talk) 23:59, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

There goes Tanaka again, lol. His description:

"how in the 1910s the Japanese erased the traditional Korean landholding system of tenant farmers, creating in the process hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants where there had been just as many semi-independent tenant farmers. This, combined with bad weather and poor harvests, created a terrible crisis in unemployment, which reached 85% in some rural areas during the mid-1930s. Faced with no other prospects, many Korean girls and women turned to prostitution, many working in brothels which operated under license by the Korean government. Others worked in restaurants that also offered sex services. Poor families would sell their daughters into sex work for a small fee."

is totally false. Again his problem is he can't read sources in Korean.

Please read what Professor Alleyne Ireland, who visited Korea in 1922, said in his book. I know it comes from the blog you hate, but the article has the link to the original book at the bottom, so if you don't believe the summary, read the whole book.

• http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-new-korea-by-alleyne-ireland.html

The population and the average life-span of Koreans doubled in 35 years under the Japanese. GDP per capita of Koreans increased on the average of 5% a year, five-fold in 35 years. My great-grandfather was born a poor farmer in 1893 (over 90% of Koreans were poor farmers and slaves at the time) and was delighted when Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and liberated them because he would have never been able to attend schools if not for the Japanese. And he probably wouldn't have lived past 20, which means I wouldn't exist right now if not for Japan's annexation.

Please also read what Professor Choi Ki-ho has to say. He was born in 1923, so he is a living witness.

• http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com/2014/10/i-am-91-years-old-and-i-want-to-tell.html

This article is an English translation of his article on his website in Korean.

• http://yeoksa.blog.fc2.com/

If Japan didn't annex Korea, the Russians would have. And the whole Korean Peninsula would be like North Korea right now.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 00:50, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Professor Lee Young-hoon of Seoul National University is an expert on land policy during Japan's annexation. He went through all public records and concluded the average Koreans' land ownership increased dramatically under the Japanese resulting in increased income for them. But since they were so dirt poor like my great-grandfather, even with Japan's help they were still relatively poor. I wish you could read Korean because Professor Lee's book is a masterpiece, and it is online for free.　http://yeoksa.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-144.html　--D.H.Lee (talk) 01:09, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem with your first response is that Professor Yuki Tanaka is a very reliable source, publishing his work in the highly respected Psychology Press, while your blog is not at all reliable under Wikipedia's guidelines. Furthermore, Alleyne Ireland's New Korea came out in 1926, so it's too old to be relevant today. It would have to be re-evaluated by a modern scholar.

I can't believe what I'm reading. You feel Tanaka, who can't read sources in Korean, would know more about the state of the Korean Peninsula 1910-1945 than Professor Ireland and Professor Choi who witnessed and experienced it? How could Professor Ireland's observation of Korea at that time be out of dated? If anything, it should be considered more valuable. He was there. I should expand Professor Lee Young-hoon's Wikipedia so that his work can be read by the westerners. Professor An Byeong-jik's Wikipedia touches on the annexation period a little more, let me quote from it.

An's views and remarks

"There was no overt exploitation of land during Japanese colonial period."

"There is no objective evidence that the comfort women were forcibly mobilized."

An denies the view that the Japanese military and police took women by force from the Korean Peninsula because Korea at the time was "a well-ordered society, although it was a colony."

"Comfort women were recruited by business operators in Korea, and there was no need for the Japanese military to abduct them."

"Half of the managers of comfort women were Korean. "　--D.H.Lee (talk) 01:37, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

By the way the blog is not mine. Its articles provide links to outside sources. For example the comment I made above "The population and the average life-span of Koreans doubled in 35 years under the Japanese. GDP per capita of Koreans increased on the average of 5% a year, five-fold in 35 years." Those numbers come from Princeton University Professor Atul Kohli's book "State-Directed Development"　http://scholarsinenglish.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-new-korea-by-alleyne-ireland.html　The blog doesn't make its own assertions. It just translates and summarizes scholars' work. Tanaka hates the capitalist Japan. He wants Japan to be like North Korea or China. He has dedicated his entire career on Japan bashing. As I stated above, he is a member of Japan Communist Party and a frequent visitor to North Korea.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 02:43, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Per WP:BIASED, Wikipedia does not require its reliable sources to be neutral. Yuki Tanaka's authoritative book on the topic continues to be perfectly acceptable on Wikiipedia despite your denigration of his life and career. If Tanaka says that poverty in Korea resulted from Japanese land policies then you'll need an equally reliable source to counter it. And in that case both views will be described to the reader.

If you are trying to push a 1920s book as a reliable source on the comfort women issue then you are violating the WP:SYNTH guideline. I always tell SYNTH violators to write their own article or book, because their synthesis is not acceptable on Wikipedia. Binksternet (talk) 03:05, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

No, 1920 book by Professor Ireland has nothing to do with comfort women. I'm using it as a source to refute the following "Tanaka described how in the 1910s the Japanese erased the traditional Korean landholding system of tenant farmers, creating in the process hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants where there had been just as many semi-independent tenant farmers. This, combined with bad weather and poor harvests, created a terrible crisis in unemployment, which reached 85% in some rural areas during the mid-1930s." I'm also using Princeton University Professor Atul Kohli's book "State-Directed Development" to refute the same by showing how income of Koreans improved dramatically under the Japanese. Please see the graph. Seoul National University Professor Lee Young-hoon's book　http://yeoksa.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-144.html　is the most comprehensive book to refute Tanaka's claim, however, it is in Korean. Seoul National University Professor An Byeong-jik's book is very similar to Professor Lee's, but it is in Korean as well. But if you see Professor An's Wikipedia, it says "There was no overt exploitation of land during Japanese colonial period" as his view. Unfortunately here we have a case there are excellent books available in Korean that have gone through Korean land records, and there is a book which is totally bogus with no land records as sources but since it is written in English, English speakers use that as the source. Before the Japanese came in most of Korean land was owned by a small number of bureaucrats called Yanban. Instead of going forever to explain this, just imagine present day North Korea. Kim Jong-un & his surroundings own most of the wealth of the nation while over 95% of the population is dirt poor. This was exactly how Korea was before the Japanese came in. If Japan is to annex North Korea right now, kick out Kim Jong-un and liberate majority of the North Koreans, wouldn't they welcome Japan's annexation with open arms? That was exactly what happened in 1910.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 03:46, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

You are focusing here on the question of how there came to be so many poverty-stricken families in Korea. If you don't like my explanation as sourced from Tanaka, you can describe it your own way. It will sound ridiculous, though, if you say that Korea in the 1930s was a wonderful place for young women, since the evidence is clear that so many young women became prostitutes or were coerced/sold/abducted. So there must be some explanation of how these young women arrived at such dire circumstances. At any rate, this is getting off track relative to the AfD discussion. Binksternet (talk) 06:26, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

No, I don't like your explanation as sourced from Tanaka. Your assertion that Tanaka is well respected is incorrect. He has been ridiculed by his peers. His problem is he writes papers & books without any sources. Originally he asserted over a hundred thousand Korean women were coerced by the Japanese military. Confronted by other scholars to provide sources, he retracted his assertion and claimed "OK, so the Korean women were recruited by Korean operators and traffickers but it was because the Japanese took land away from Koreans." Again other scholars have shown him sources that didn't happen. But he is worshipped by the comfort women wikipedia cult, so it's not surprising that you use him as your source. Although income of Koreans increased five-fold under the Japanese, not all Koreans' lives improved equally. As Japan introduced market economy, some Koreans did well and others didn't. My great-grandfather would have stayed a poor farmer under the old system but with market economy he became a successful businessman. If you read Professor Park Yuha or Professor C. Sarah Soh's book, they explain that many of the fathers of Korean comfort women had debt from alcohol, gambling, etc.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 08:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• I don't see the requirements of WP:GNG being met here. The topic ought to have multiple in-depth discussions of it in reliable sources, discussions which talk about the larger issue of kidnapping in the 1930s, not ones that concentrate on a single case. Binksternet (talk) 06:20, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Binksternet has tried every which way to delete this article. He started out this AFD by calling me an angry revisionist. He even accused me of using multiple accounts. I have provided reasonable answers to all of his theories, yet he keeps coming up with new ones. I'm convinced that I'll never satisfy him.

Here is what sockpuppet administrator Vanjagenije said: "While I don't think the article is great, I am concerned that the deletion reason being put forward does not take into account that kidnapping of women for prostitution purposes was not confined to the actions of the Japanese in acquiring comfort women (it existed before and after the Japanese occupation of Korea), and it appears to follow a similarly named article in Japanese Wikipedia that has been in existence since 2009."

Here is what ABF99 said: "As another point of view to the Comfort Women article, it could be useful. That point of view is backed up by reliable sources, as you have noted. The Japanese Wikipedia article on kidnappings of Korean women in the 1930's that you linked to is very different: it provides a great deal of historical background, discusses the relations between Japan and Korea, and includes referenced discussions of the comfort women program."

As per these suggestions, I am willing to add historical background, referenced discussion of the comfort women program, etc. to the article so that it would be worthy of being a stand-alone article. Also since both Vanjagenije and ABF99 think the Japanese version that has existed since 2009 has better content, I'm even willing to translate and incorporate that content into my article. So far Binksternet said no, I said yes, so I would like to hear from others, and I'm willing to accept whatever the outcome. Thank you for your time, and nice talking with you, Binksternet. 　--D.H.Lee (talk) 08:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• I expanded the article.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 14:09, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

With that work, you have definitely turned it into a POV fork. Binksternet (talk) 15:16, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I knew you were going to say that. But a couple of people suggested that I should offer another viewpoint to comfort women Wikipedia in this article, so I complied. If the consensus here is I shouldn't refer to comfort women, then I would take them out.　--D.H.Lee (talk) 16:24, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

If you insert the comfort women information then you have a POV fork, with the information belonging in the comfort women background section, the portions that are relevant. On the other hand, if you remove the comfort women information then your article fails the guideline at WP:GNG. The saying in English is that you are between a rock and a hard place. Binksternet (talk) 16:45, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with Binksternet about the POV fork. Your article now reads like an essay, with a definite and singular point of view, (yours), especially at the end. That's just not how Wikipedia is supposed to work. Articles should provide balanced discussions and a neutral POV, especially of controversial topics. You may feel the current Comfort Women article is one sided—if so, you should address that on the talk page of that article. That is why I kept urging you to merge whatever is reliably sourced and relevant to that article. When I said, "as another point of view, it could be useful", I was referring to your adding your sourced information to the Comfort Women article, not to creating a separate opinion piece. The English translation of the Japanese article on Kidnapping of Korean women is not good enough for me to ascertain completely that that article covers all sides of the issue, with reliable sources, but it seems to from what I can tell.

The only way I could see this possibly working as a stand alone topic is if you strip it of any taint of POV and focus on one aspect of the comfort women program, ie the role of specific Korean kidnappers and/or the kidnapping of Korean women. There is for instance, an article called Reverse Underground Railroad, which deals with the kidnapping of free black people within the broader topic of Slavery in the United States. There are many separate Wiki articles within the topic of the Holocaust, (ie Jewish Ghetto Police) or World War II, or other important episodes or periods of history. But they are all based on reliable sources that deal with the named subject of the article, and all strive for a NPOV. ABF99 (talk) 01:42, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

• Merge into comfort women. The current essay-like tone does not help, but even if that is fixed I cannot see anything that distinguishes this from the overall comfort women issue. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 02:29, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:24, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:24, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Korea-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:24, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.