In Japan, they are known as "children of mixed blood": those born after 1945 to an American GI and a Japanese woman and abandoned due to stigma. Eighty years after the end of World War II, we went to meet some of these orphans to understand more about their painful past.
From 1945 to 1952, when Japan was occupied by the United States following its surrender, hundreds of thousands of American soldiers were stationed there. Many had relationships with Japanese women, and rapes were also committed. Many Japanese women gave birth to mixed-race children.
As sons or daughters of the former enemy – the US, which dropped two atomic bombs on Japan – these "babies of shame" were sometimes abandoned after birth. To save them, orphanages were built to bring up these "cursed children", who were ostracised from society – as were their Japanese mothers.
Almost 80 years later, our correspondents tracked down some of these orphans in Japan and the US. What became of them? While some have managed to find a small place in Japanese society, others, still searching for their identity, have chosen to move to the US.
Watch moreEighty years after Pearl Harbor, survivors of Japanese internment camps remember ordeal
