About 100 protesters from a coalition of non-governmental organizations yesterday protested outside the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in Taipei, demanding that the Japanese government apologize again to surviving Taiwanese “comfort women” and provide them with compensation.
About 2,000 Taiwanese women were estimated to have been forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, and the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation located 59 survivors after it set up a hotline in 1992, foundation chief executive Fan Ching (范情) said.
“Only two of them remain today and neither were able to attend this demonstration because of their advanced age,” she said.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Instead, 59 people clad in black and wearing white masks sat silently next to a paper wall printed with the names of the comfort women they represented.
As in its previous protests, the foundation demanded that Japan’s prime minister apologize to the former comfort women on behalf of the Japanese government and provide them compensation.
It also urged the Japanese government to release all documents related to comfort women, initiate an investigation into their history and educate the public about sexual slavery.
Photo: CNA
“To better protect women’s rights and prevent similar things from happening again, the history must be included in Japanese textbooks,” Fan said, adding that until a Japanese prime minister apologizes, the foundation would its annual protests.
The Japanese government should build a museum commemorating the history of comfort women in Japan to educate the public about it, foundation chairwoman Huang Shu-ling (黃淑玲) said.
The foundation has repeatedly invited Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to visit the AMA Museum in Taipei’s Datong District (大同), which it founded in 2016 to document the history of the comfort women, she said.
No Japanese official has ever visited it, but many Japanese tourists and journalists have, she said.
“Do not underestimate the power of this movement for comfort women. It is the power of women in Asia and around the world who are standing in solidarity to demand human rights,” Huang said.
Over the past several decades, campaigns calling for justice for comfort women have evolved from a local movement to a global one, with the ultimate goal being to end sexual violence, she said.
“Although survivors age and pass away, the movement will not die, because their influence will continue to grow as more young people join in, bringing with them new momentum,” she said.
In Tainan, the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Tainan chapter and the Tainan Association for Comfort Women’s Rights yesterday unveiled the nation’s first bronze statue of a comfort woman
At the ceremony, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) urged the Japanese government to formerly apologize to Taiwanese comfort women and provide compensation.
Aug. 14 has become a day to remember comfort women in Taiwan and South Korea because on Aug. 14, 1991, South Korean Kim Hak-sun became the first former comfort woman to give public testimony about her experience.
Additional reporting by Wang Chun-chung
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
REASONS FOR TRAVEL: An assistant professor said that proposed amendments to penalize drivers if they used drugs overseas would not deter people from traveling People who operate a motor vehicle under the influence of marijuana would have their driver’s license revoked, even if they used the substance while overseas, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday, citing proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例). The amendments would also authorize the government to revoke the licenses of people determined to have used Category 1 or Category 2 narcotics, even if they were not operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs, as well as ban them from taking the license test for three years, the ministry said. People aged 18 or
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
RSS