Cheng Chen Tao (鄭陳桃), one of Taiwan’s few surviving “comfort women,” died of pneumonia in a hospital in Pingtung County on Monday. She was 93.
Due to her ailing physical state, on Oct. 21 last year, Cheng Chen moved to the Southern Region Senior Citizens’ Home in Pingtung City from her previous residence in Linluo Township (麟洛), about 10km east of the city. She weighed only 23kg when she moved into the nursing home.
Cheng Chen had been hospitalized at the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Pingtung Hospital twice after her move to the nursing care facility.
Cheng Chen married twice and is survived by an adopted daughter and an adopted son.
The term “comfort women” euphemistically describes women from East Asia, including several thousand Taiwanese, who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.
Cheng Chen was forced to work at a Japanese military brothel in the Andaman Islands, an archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, in the early 1940s.
She and three other former comfort women sued the Japanese government for an apology and compensation in 1999. However, they lost the case.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) expressed his sorrow about Cheng Chen’s death and regret she did not receive a formal apology from the Japanese government, Presidential Office spokesman Charles Chen (陳以信) said.
Ma also said all those concerned about former Taiwanese comfort women would also lament Cheng Chen’s death, especially as it leaves only three Taiwanese survivors after her passing, Chen said on Thursday.
Chen said Ma would attend a memorial service for Cheng Chen next week.
Of the three surviving comfort women, two are 92 years old and the third is 87, said Kang Shu-hua (康淑華), executive director of the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation, which has long offered assistance to Taiwanese comfort women.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do