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Did any of the other belligerents of WW2 besides Japan and Germany provide their troops with authorised military brothels?

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Apparently the French also operated military brothels, the Bordels Mobiles de Campagne. Note, however, that the article is poorly cited, and all its online references don't exist anymore. – Yannis Rizos Nov 8 '12 at 20:29
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@YannisRizos: King Louis XI of France was at the origin of French military brothels. His logic for creating them was to stop his troupes raping. But that was neither during WW2 nor was there any wide-spread coercion as far as I am aware. – Sardathrion Nov 9 '12 at 10:43
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In the case with Japan the use of the word enlist is very controversial and against much of the recorded evidence, but also very much in dispute. These almost seem like two different situations to me. – MichaelF Nov 9 '12 at 12:37
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A better word would be "trick". Japan told them they would be getting high pay factory jobs in a big city, but that never happened. – Luke Nov 9 '12 at 15:10
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@coleopterist conscript might, but considering the history behind it's going to devolve into a semantics argument. Maybe eliminate the mention of women altogether and just ask if any other country "utilized authorized military brothels" if that is the only aspect of this you are concerned about. – MichaelF Nov 9 '12 at 19:51
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1 Answer

Not limited to Nazi-Germany and Imperial Japan the following belligerents are implicated in providing women for sex to military authorities, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand. A series of searches revealed an informative article. A snippet of this credibly sourced article is provide below.

During the Second World War, approximately 3,500 Australian military nurses served in combat regions throughout the world. The vast majority were enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), but after the Japanese advance and the fall of Hong Kong (December 1941) and Singapore (February 1942), a significant number of these nurses spent three-and-a-half years as POWs in Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines.1 To date, considerable research has been undertaken on POW experiences in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Japan, albeit primarily focused on the testimonies of men and civilian women.2 This body of research utilises various methodologies, from Yuki Tanaka and Kei Ushimura’s efforts to reconcile Japanese war crimes with the corruption of the Bushido ethic and sexual violence in contemporary Japanese society, to Christina Twomey’s work on the imprisonment and repatriation of Dutch, Dutch–Eurasian and Australian civilian women and children. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3143890/

http://www.archives.gov/iwg/japanese-war-crimes/introductory-essays.pdf

http://www.deltasd.bc.ca/nd/library/NDSSOnlineCourses/OnlineCourses/ComfortWomen/The%20Task.html

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Note however, that the paper in the first link says further: "Through re-examining documents released by the Japanese government in the 1990s as well as archives in Holland and Australia, scholars such as Yoshimi Yoshiaki and Yuki Tanaka have sought to demonstrate that these nurses were forced into prostitution as part of a government-controlled system that provided Japanese servicemen with comfort women.10 – Felix Goldberg Dec 21 '12 at 19:26
The evidence for this is inconclusive and, when asked in an interview for The Australian newspaper in 1992, the surviving AANS members denied such claims.11 While there are gaps between experience, testimony, popular memory and history it is unhelpful to fill these gaps with conclusions that are somewhat radical and difficult to support." So it's not quite certain. – Felix Goldberg Dec 21 '12 at 19:28
Transport yourself back to 1942 and consider Draconian contemporary attitudes towards rape’s victims. There are multiple accounts of testimonies from soldiers on both sides and the skepticism of their validity. While I agree this may remain unresolved due to the conflicts thereof, history in it's own right is evaluating the sources, that provides us with the evidence, which gives us proof. There is a strong case of circumstantial proof here from original sources. – Ezri J. Rediker Dec 22 '12 at 0:01
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Yes, but these are essentially Japanese military brothels. As my question states, I'm looking for other examples. – coleopterist Dec 22 '12 at 6:45
Very true, I will update the question as I find better sources. This went a little off topic from where I wanted it to go. – Ezri J. Rediker Dec 22 '12 at 9:47

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