Caroline Norma
 |
PhD Candidate Asia Institute |
Background
Caroline Norma completed degrees in Economics and Japanese at Swinburne University, and an MA in Japanese Interpreting and Translation at the University of Queensland. At the Asia Institute, she has completed an honours project looking at anti-military base community groups on Okinawa, and an MA thesis on the destruction of Yokohama City in the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. She studied in Japan from 1997-2000, and is a qualified Japanese>English translator.
Caroline is currently a PhD candidate in the Asia Institute and the Department of Political Science supervised by Sheila Jeffreys and Carolyn Stevens. From August 2007, she will spend one year at Seoul National University researching the progress and implementation of the 2004 South Korean Anti-prostitution Law.
PhD research
‘Comfort women’ for salarymen: the development of the modern settai fuuzoku prostitution sector in Japan
At the time of the passing of Japan’s 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, the geisha system made up the largest part of the Japanese prostitution industry. Apart from banning the prostitution of girls, the Law did not, however, prohibit the geisha system. To evade the Law’s restrictions after 1956, therefore, sex industry businesses in Japan transformed themselves into ‘geisha’ venues, and prospered into the era of high speed growth. The hostess bar sector in Japan today, which Arthur Golden describes as a modern day geisha system, is one legacy of the 1956 Law. My thesis argues that the development of this settai fuuzoku prostitution sector has relied on a long tradition of entertaining and deal making at sex industry venues by political, military, and businessmen in Japan. In recent decades, commercial businessmen in particular have promoted a growth in hostess bars. The kisaeng sex tourism of Japanese businessmen to South Korea in the 1970s even expanded this sector abroad. My thesis traces the development of this system providing ‘comfort women’ to salarymen in Japan, and asks why the culture of business in Japan came to feature the sex industry so prominently.
Research Interests
Caroline Norma is a member of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia, and has travelled internationally to speak on the organisation’s behalf. She has been involved in the feminist movement for 10 years, and is engaged with women’s organisations in Japan, the Philippines, and Korea. Her research interests include prostitution, trafficking, and militarism in Japan and Korea.