Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice presidential candidate Jennifer Wang (王如玄) yesterday said that rhetoric describing Taiwanese women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II as willing participants would be a secondary victimization of them.
“From the perspective of feminism, it is apparent that these women were not only coerced into sex slavery, but were also exploited. I will not brook any content in school textbooks that claim they did this of their own accord,” Wang said on the sidelines of a charity event in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華).
“Any content that says these women were willing participants in all this will only subject them to secondary victimization,” said Wang, who advocates women’s rights.
She was responding to media inquiries on renewed debate over the Ministry of Education’s proposed high-school curriculum guidelines adjustments, which would see women forced into sex slavery during World War II referred to as “women forced to become sex slaves” instead of “comfort women.”
Some students opposing the planned changes have asked: “How can one prove that all of these comfort women were forced into sex slavery?”
The guidelines changes were put back in the spotlight after Japan on Monday agreed to apologize and offer ￥1 billion (US$8.3 million) in compensation to South Korean comfort women.
The deal prompted President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Tuesday to reiterate his administration’s demand that Tokyo issue an apology to Taiwanese women forced to become wartime sex slaves.
The New Party urged Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to express her stance on the proposed adjustments, asking her whether it was mainstream public opinion that comfort women were coerced.
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