Pollock: Let The Good Times Roll (paper) - S Pollock

Recent revelations about Korean "comfort women" forced into prostitution by the Japanese army during World War II, and of the routine rape of Muslim women by Serbian soldiers in Bosnia, have focused international media attention on the horrors faced by women during war. But even in peacetime, the exploitation of women by military forces continues. Rarely mentioned in the press or in political debate are the hundreds of thousands of Asian women living around US military bases and working in economies built on the sale of sex.;Never before have these women, who provide sexual labour for the US military, told their own stories in their own words. Even now, as the closing of bases in the Philippines renews debate about the US role in Asia, there is a pervasive silence about the lives of women who are directly affected.;In this book, women of the bar areas around the US bases in Okinawa, in the Philippines, and in the southern part of Korea speak about their lives with remarkable candour. In gripping and poignant narratives they describe their families and childhoods, the poor rural and urban areas they come from, life and work in the bar areas, and their attitudes towards the bar owners, the American customers and themselves.