First filmed evidence of 'comfort women' found in US archives

Newly uncovered footage of a group of "comfort women" provides filmed evidence of the Imperial Japanese Army's sexual enslavement of women from Asian countries during the World War II era.

The black-and-white footage shot in 1944 by a US Army private in Yunnan province shows the women standing outside a brick house. They were barefoot and looked nervous.

After a two-year search through US archives, researchers from Seoul University uncovered the footage at the US National Archives and Records Administration. The women were filmed after they were liberated by Chinese and United States allied forces as the troops reclaimed Songshan, in Yunnan, from the Japanese.