Taiwan has been lobbying the Japanese parliament to pass legislation that would allow the state to compensate Taiwanese women for having been forced to work in Japanese army brothels during World War II, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Gary Lin (
"Japan has not displayed enough sincerity in handling the case. We will keep lobbying members of the Diet [the Japanese parliament] to pass a law that would give the Japanese government a legal foundation to compensate these women," Lin said.
Taiwan has been pleading their case for years by means of the Taipei offices of the Japanese Interchange Association and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan.
However, Lin said the ongoing lobbying of the Diet has so far made little progress.
"It is not an easy task. We need to obtain the support of more than two-thirds of the Diet's members to pass the law," Lin said.
In 1992 the foreign ministry created a task force to aid the former "comfort women" in their compensation claim.
The task force has convened eight meetings since its inception, Lin said.
The ministry also set aside a NT$21 million budget for 42 Taiwanese women who were confirmed to have been used as sex slaves during the war. Each of the women claimed NT$500,000 in compensation, Lin said.
According to Lin the problem is that Japan refuses to recognize the use of sex slaves as a state mistake and is only willing to compensate the victims through private channels.
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