Prisoners of War and Civilian Forced Labourers

Beginning with its invasion of Southeast Asia in 1941, the Japanese military took captive hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers and local resistance forces. They were enslaved, together with millions of civilians drafted in occupied territories, as forced labourers to serve the Japanese war effort. Twenty seven percent of Allied prisoners of war died in camps, marches, and work sites such as the Thai-Burma Railway characterized by malnutrition, disease, and abuse. Civilian forced labourers likewise suffered unimaginable mortality rates. This gallery tells of the horrors they endured, the lingering trauma they experience, and their ongoing struggles for justice from the Japanese government and complicit corporations.