Activists want record of women's rights movement

Several women's rights groups yesterday appealed to the government to set up an information center to document the history of the development of the women's rights movement in Taiwan.

They also urged the authorities to continue demanding compensation from the Japanese government for Taiwanese "comfort women" who served as sex slaves for the Japanese army during World War II.

"The purpose of pushing for the establishment of this information bureau is to provide the public with a clear picture of what has been done, and what needs to be done concerning the women's rights movement," said Lee Yuan-chen (李元貞), founder of the Awakening Foundation (婦女新知基金會), at yesterday's press conference organized by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (婦女救援基金會).

"In addition, endeavors made by women's rights activists nowadays should be fully documented so future generations will know that women's rights were not obtained easily in Taiwan."

To show that the government is concerned about women's rights, the activists called on the authorities to fund the establishment of an information center chronicling the women's rights movement in Taiwan.

Activists at the press conference also spoke of their concern about the rights of former comfort women. They claimed that the comfort women issue has been manipulated for political purposes and the real issues raised in the Japanese comic On Taiwan (台灣論) -- in which author Yoshinori Kobayashi (小林善紀) quoted two Taiwanese business leaders as saying Taiwan's comfort women were not coerced -- had been overlooked.

"When the news broke [in February,] the argument was centered on whether the comfort women had been forced into sexual slavery, or whether they were voluntary sex workers. These debates have blurred the focus of the issue," said Sue Huang (黃淑英), chairperson of the League of Taiwan Women (台灣女人連線).

She said the real issue that needed to be addressed was government complicity in acting as an agent to recruit women to serve the troops' sexual needs under the belief that men's desires needed to be constantly satisfied.

"Any government -- whether it be the KMT or the Japanese colonial authorities -- should apologize if they have ever been involved in rounding up women or girls to entertain soldiers," Huang said.

The activists implored the government to continue its efforts to get financial compensation from the Japanese government for Taiwanese comfort women and they demanded an immediate probe to see if the KMT government was at fault for providing prostitutes for soldiers on outlying

islands.

They said that if the KMT was found to be in the wrong, it should offer a public apology. They asked that any documents unearthed during the investigation be archived and included in Taiwan's school curriculum to promote gender equality.

For decades it was a common practice to provide prostitutes for servicemen on Kinmen and Matsu. Some women who were employed at these brothels were reportedly forced into their occupations. The practice ended some 15 years ago.