回不去的女人們：隱匿於二戰後臺灣的前韓籍性工作者

Left Behind: Untold Stories of Former Korean Sex Workers in Post-WWII Taiwan

二戰結束後，在臺韓人被遣返回光復後的韓國，然而並非所有人都歸國。根據1947年的〈臺灣韓僑登記名冊〉記錄，共有358名韓國人留在臺灣，其中包括48名登記為戶長的年輕女性。在這些女性中，約有三成與臺灣本地男子結婚；另有三成則被標註為「應行遣返」。由於國民政府僅允許擁有「正當職業」的韓國人留臺，可推斷這些女性未符合相關規定：許多人曾從事性工作者，其中一些可能曾在日軍軍營中擔任慰安婦。
本文根據國史館與國家檔案局的官方資料，以及作者在韓僑社群中進行的私人訪談，聚焦於梳理戰後留在臺灣的年輕韓國女性的生命故事——無論她們是出於自願、非自願，或是僅因機緣巧合而留下。在1947年的登記名冊裡，48名女性中僅有一人在公開記錄中被確認為前慰安婦，另有兩人據稱是前慰安婦，其餘女性則可能為娼妓。然而，作者認為「慰安婦」與「娼妓」的二元劃分並不準確。無論是慰安婦還是娼妓，她們皆遭受人口販運而被迫來臺。許多慰安婦在日本帝國時期曾為娼妓。這些女性不僅是日本帝國主義和父權體制的受害者，同時也受到儒家貞潔觀念的束縛，而這些觀念使她們在戰後無法回到家鄉。

After WWII, Koreans in Taiwan were repatriated to newly liberated Korea; however, not all left the island. According to“The Register of Korean Expatriates in Taiwan (臺灣韓僑登記名冊)”of 1947, 358 Koreans remained, including 48 young women who were heads of their households. Among these women, a third married local men, with another third labeled as“to be deported.”As the Nationalist government allowed Koreans to stay in Taiwan if they had a“proper job,”it is inferred that these women did not meet this requirement. Many had previously worked as prostitutes, with some believed to have been“comfort women”in the Japanese military.
Drawing on government archival documents from Academia Historica and the National Archives Administration, as well as personal interviews conducted with elderly members of the Korean community in Taiwan, this article explores the postcolonial lives of the young Korean women who remained on the island, whether by choice, chance, or coercion. Of the 48 women listed in the 1947 Register, only one is openly acknowledged as a former comfort woman, with two others allegedly so, while the rest may have worked as prostitutes.
This article challenges the binary distinction between“comfort women”and“prostitutes,”commonly viewed as distinct, if not opposing, categories. While different, the two groups share significant similarities. Both comfort women and prostitutes were trafficked overseas against their will and subjected to great hardship, and many comfort women were formerly prostitutes within the Japanese empire. The article concludes that these women were victims not only of Japanese imperialism and patriarchal forces that coerced them into prostitution but also of the Confucian ideals of female chastity, which hindered their return home after the war.