This paper intends to analyze the process of mobilization of Korean sex slaves of the Japanese military(‘comfort women’) in Palembang, Sumatra in Indonesia. This study is based on the documents called the Ninth Nanpo Army Hospital List(留守名簿, 復員名簿) made by the Japanese military forces and some oral documents. On the List, the Korean women were described as temporary nurses(臨看) because the Japanese military received the order to transfer the ‘comfort women’ into nurses soon after Japan defeated in World War II. Most Korean women of the List were basically ‘comfort women’. It is verified by testimony of Koreans who were there in Palembang at that time.
About 127 Korean women were mobilized to Palembang and it is known that there were five ‘comfort stations’ there. First of all, Korean women were deceived by pimps(slave dealers) in Kyeongju, Kwangju, Busan and other places and by recruitment fraud and were forced to go to the battlefield. Some of those pimps who took a part to mobilize them actually ran the ‘comfort stations’ for military in Palembang. However, the fundamental factor was that the Japanese military’s demand for ‘comfort women’ was transmitted to the Japanese military in Korea and again, the Japanese- Government General of Korea and Japanese military in Korea asked the pimps to mobilize women as ‘comfort women.’ The Japanese imperialists restricted prostitution and other related businesses in the home front and instead, made a way to mobilize the ‘comfort women’ to the battlefields.