Korean History › Japanese rule › Japanese colonial rule of Korea
Wartime forced labor and conscription
1938–1945 (numbers debated)· Event· Society, economy & people
Mostly agreedGood evidence; some details, dates or numbers uncertain.
Japan's wartime drafting of Koreans as laborers, soldiers and military workers for mines, factories and battlefronts, 1938–1945.
See it on the Korean History map →What happened
Under Japan's 1938 National Mobilization Law, Koreans were mobilized (강제동원) in stages: company recruiting from 1939, government-arranged placement from 1942, and legal labor conscription from 1944. Army 'volunteer' programs began in 1938 and military conscription in 1944. Workers went to coal mines, factories and building sites in Japan, Sakhalin and the Pacific, often in harsh, dangerous conditions. Estimates vary: about 700,000–800,000 went abroad for labor; Korea's government counts far more mobilizations in total, many inside Korea.
Why it matters
Compensation claims still divide Seoul and Tokyo: Korean court rulings since 2018 ordered Japanese firms to pay, which Japan says breaches the 1965 settlement.
How we know
Japanese government and company records, rosters compiled by Korea's truth commission (2004–2015), survivor testimony, and court records from cases in both countries.
Still debated
Totals and the degree of coercion in early recruiting are disputed, as is whether the 1965 Korea–Japan treaty settled individual claims.
Connections (3)
▸Wartime forced labor and conscription was imposed under Japanese colonial rule of KoreaWell documented
The connection
As Japan's war with China and then the Allies widened, the colonial government applied the 1938 National Mobilization Law to Korea. It used local officials and police to fill labor quotas set by Tokyo and companies, alongside 'imperial subject' campaigns meant to make Koreans loyal Japanese subjects ready to work and fight.
When and how
Korea and Japan's empire, 1938–1945, under Governors-General Minami Jiro, Koiso Kuniaki and Abe Nobuyuki, with firms such as Mitsubishi and Nippon Steel.
How we know
Mobilization ordinances, Government-General labor-supply plans, company rosters, and postwar Japanese government surveys of Korean workers.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate when recruitment shifted from mostly voluntary to coercive; some Japanese scholars stress wage labor, Korean scholars systematic compulsion.
▸Japanese military 'comfort women' system overlapped with Wartime forced labor and conscriptionMostly agreed
The connection
Both drew on the same wartime mobilization of colonial subjects. Some women were recruited under the pretense of factory work, and in Korea the term jeongsindae, a women's labor corps for factories, was long used for comfort women too. Researchers now separate the two, but survivors' testimony shows the paths sometimes crossed.
When and how
Korea and Japan's empire, 1937–1945; the Women's Volunteer Labor Corps ordinance came in August 1944.
How sure are we?
Mobilization ordinances, labor corps records, and survivors' testimony; Korea's main advocacy group, founded in 1990, originally used the jeongsindae name.
Debates and open questions
How many labor corps members, if any, were sent to comfort stations is debated, and the early mix-up of terms has been used by both sides.
▸Wartime forced labor and conscription is disputed as settled by Korea–Japan Treaty on Basic RelationsDebated
The connection
The 1965 claims agreement declared all claims between the two states and their nationals 'settled completely and finally.' Japan holds that this ended wartime-labor claims. In 2018 South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that victims' right to compensation for unlawful colonial acts survived, and ordered Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay.
When and how
Tokyo, 1965; Seoul court rulings in October and November 2018; Japan tightened export controls in 2019; in 2023 Seoul announced a Korean-funded foundation would pay victims instead.
How sure are we?
The treaty text, the 2018 rulings, and Korea's files declassified in 2005, showing Seoul accepted the money as a lump-sum state settlement and spent most of it on development.
Debates and open questions
Whether individual claims survive under international law, whether Japanese firms will ever contribute, and whether the 2023 compromise, refused by some victims, will last.