A memorial to “comfort women” in Taipei, Taiwan, on Aug. 14, 2015 (AP Photo/Wally Santana)
What is believed to be the last Taiwan woman to survive sexual slavery by the Japanese army in territories occupied by Japan in the late 19th and 20th centuries has died in Taiwan. News of the woman’s death, who did not want her name published, was broken by the Taipei Women’s Relief Foundation, a non-profit organization that fights against sex slavery in Taiwan: she was 92 years old and died on May 10 last year .
It is estimated that between 1932 and 1945 an estimated 200,000 people were recruited, sometimes by force and sometimes by deception, to serve in the Japanese military as prostitutes both in Taiwan and other Japanese-occupied territories, including Korea, China, Indonesia and the Philippines . The Japanese referred to these people as ianfu, which translates to “comfort women.” The foundation has calculated that in Taiwan, occupied by Japan from 1895 to 1945, there were a total of about 2,000 people who were mistreated. Thanks to the establishment of a telephone hotline, the association has been able to find and help 59 people over the years.
The issue of “comfort women” created great tension between Japan and the countries it was then occupying. According to critics, the Japanese government has never accepted full responsibility for these events: in Taiwan, feminist groups continue to press for their families to receive an official apology and some form of compensation from Japan, as happened in the case of South Korea.
In 2015, then-Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida (the current Prime Minister) apologized for the way these women were treated at the time. A few weeks later, however, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared to downplay the story, telling parliament there were no documents showing that the Japanese military had forced these women into prostitution.
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