One of the least discussed aspects of the Allied war effort was the officially sanctioned brothels in the rapidly proliferating army camps in eastern India. The colonial establishment used the easy availability of starving girls to cheaply stock these brothels. A survey of 30,000 women serving in military camps in Chittagong in 1944, supposedly to dig trenches and build runways, found that 90 per cent suffered from venereal diseases.35 Much has been written about ‘comfort women’ used by the Japanese army during this period, but almost none about how Allied forces did the same thing in India.
