Why were girls the majority among the Korean comfort women?

According to the archival documents and the testimonies of former Korean “comfort women,” many of them were young girls with no sexual experiences, when they were deceived, abducted, and/or trafficked. There are some feminists scholars and activists who take issue with this fact of the young age of the Korean “comfort women,” pointing out that these are merely representation of “model victim” comfort women, thereby relying on logic of patriarchal “nationalistic discourse” that invite “discriminatory attitudes toward prostitutes.”  Moreover, claims such as “they were neither girls nor sex slaves,” “they formed fellowship with the Japanese soldiers,” and “there were romantic relationships with the solders,” are stated in recognition of the “diversity” amongst the “comfort women.” These claims, in many cases, aim at relieving the Japanese military of their responsibilities.

Might it be possible, then, to speak of the fact that many of the “comfort women” were girls, and still recognize feminist concerns and the multitude of differences among “comfort women”? Is it possible to consider “comfort women” as subjects of structure of sexual slavery, while having agentive relations of love and comradely?  In what ways did the dynamics of domination by way of ethnicity, gender, and class, as well as colonialism and nationalism affect the structures of “comfort women” system and the individual relationships formed with Japanese soldiers?  In what ways were the Korean and Japanese “comfort women” similar and different? This paper aims at to address these questions with the methodologies of gender history.