Quoting Aiko Takeuchi‐Demirci’s Sexuality and the Japanese Empire: A contested history:

Soon after the end of World War II the [Imperial] government, now fearing the possibility of “mass rape” committed by the Allied troops against Japanese women, willingly provided Japanese prostitutes to the GIs. The Allied soldiers continued to use the facilities run by the Recreation and Amusement Association, as well as other brothels in traditional red‐light districts, until General Douglas McArthur, head of the occupation force, announced “the abolition of Japan’s feudalistic licensed brothels” and “the emancipation of women from the enslaved prostitution business.”

The ban was actually issued in response to reports the GHQ received stating that the GIs continued to contract venereal disease. The GHQ still allowed “voluntary” prostitution, leading to the increase of so‐called “women of the night” (yami no onna) and pan‐pan.

The GHQ, the [Imperial] government, and even moral reformers were complicit in this organized crime against women. Yoshimi Yoshiaki has revealed that the GHQ was aware of the [Imperial] military’s comfort women system, as they interviewed Japanese soldiers and civilians, as well as some Korean comfort women.

Because the Allied soldiers had been using the same system of state‐sponsored prostitution, they did not prosecute during war crime trials the [Imperialists] who had been responsible for the sexual exploitation of comfort women.

Fujime Yuki criticizes abolitionist women’s groups for not only remaining silent on the comfort women issue during the war but for also continuing to blame the “women of the night” for “seducing” American soldiers during the occupation.

(Emphasis added.)