Comfort Women

After reading these articles I'm not quite sure where I would stand on the issue of comfort women. One one hand you have the legal regulated brothels in the US and Europe, but then you also have the  sex slaves throughout the world. If the industry could be completely regulated to make sure that nobody was being manipulated or forced into prostitution and the business was done in an inspected and clean area then I find no moral issues with prostitution. However, realistically this is not possible and the types of abuse described in the articles will happen no matter how much the industry is regulated. Another point though is that the human trafficking business isn't too concerned with legality and will still continue to force people to be sex slaves against their will. So while it doesn't quite seem right it might end up being better if there was at least some regulation in the industry.
          In the legal brothels in the US, specifically in Nevada, the standards are extremely strict and the women there took the job on their own volition in a clear state of mind (not a drug addict, or under duress). They have to undergo weekly STD screenings and background/health checks to make sure that they are healthy and also have a legal authority to go to if the owner of the brothel mistreats them. While this does seem to work somewhat well on a small scale in the US, it does not seem to work quite as well in countries like Cambodia, where it mentioned in the article that many of the women die of AIDS and cannot go to the police since the brothel owners bribe them. One of the articles actually showed that one of the freed slaves went back to the brothel in order to get access to meth, which shows the problem of some of the sex workers not being in a clear state of mind.
         So while it does initially seem like legalizing and regulating the industry would prevent abuse of the workers and put them in a safer environment, the articles showed that any regulations can be sidestepped through bribes and intimidation. However, even if prostitution was illegal there would still be a demand and sadly that demand would still be met. So while it's hard to find a good position on this issue I guess would finally decide in favor of legalizing it, so that even if the regulations are bypassed in many places, it would still be made overall safer for the sex workers. While there is the danger that legalizing this industry would cause more of a demand which would then cause more people to be brought in which would cause regulation of the industry to be less efficient, it seems like giving someone in that business someone they can go to for help in case of trouble outweighs this potential concern.