[CALS Article] Women on the Death Railway: A Microhistory of Victimization and Agency

CALS Research Cluster Coordinator for International Law in Asia, Associate Professor Cheah W.L., has her article “Women on the Death Railway: A Microhistory of Victimization and Agency” published by the Law and History Review. The article examines women’s overlooked experiences on the Thailand–Burma Death Railway in WWII, where up to 250,000 Asian civilians died. Focusing on the Kudo Butai trial, it highlights sexual abuse, survival, and agency. Trial records reveal a nineteen-year-old orphan, “Siamese lady friends,” and a Chinese dresser’s wife, showing structural conditions that rendered women vulnerable under Japanese occupation.

Abstract

In total, 75,000 to 250,000 Asian civilians died building the Thailand-Burma Death Railway under Japanese military orders during the Second World War. Among these were women whose experiences remain overlooked or marginalized in histories about the Death Railway. This microhistory of the Kudo Butai war crimes trial draws on recent scholarship on the relational and structural aspects of victimization and agency to study the sexual abuse and broader experiences of women on the railway. It focuses on the experiences, strategic acts, and survival choices of the following women who appear in trial records: the nineteen-year-old orphan sexually tortured to death, “Siamese lady friends” of some defendants, and the Chinese dresser’s wife who helped POWs. By identifying the relational and structural conditions contributing to sexual violence on the railway, this study demonstrates that the overwhelming experience of women under Japanese military occupation was one of the widespread vulnerability to sexual violence.

Read the article:
The Law and History Review, First View, pp. 1 – 16.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248025101077

Cheah W. L.  is an Associate Professor and the Research Cluster Coordinator for International Law in Asia at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS).

Learn more about her work here: https://law.nus.edu.sg/cals/people/cheah-w-l/