Portrayal of suffering of 200,000 women

Updated: 2015-08-21 08:17

(China Daily Europe)

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China's State Archives Administration has released a series of videos documenting the experiences of sex slaves at the hands of the Japanese military over 70 years ago.

The eight-part collection was uploaded to the administration's website over several days starting on Aug 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in 1945.

Japan made an incursion into northeastern China in September 1931 and launched a full-scale invasion on July 7, 1937. About 35 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed or injured in the war that followed.

 Portrayal of suffering of 200,000 women

Zheng Jinnv was imprisoned and forced to be a sex slave aged about 16. Huang Yiming / China Daily

In addition, an estimated 200,000 women were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops. These victims were known as "comfort women".

Only a handful are still alive, and few have ever publicly talked about their enslavement. Thousands took their secret to the grave without receiving an apology or compensation from Japan.

"These horrific, institutionalized acts of violence committed by Japanese invaders, rarely seen in the history of human civilization, constitute state crimes and a gross violation of the human rights of the victimized women," the archive said on its website. "They are some of the most painful chapters in the annals of history."

A statement by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's on Aug 14 to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II made no direct reference to comfort women.

The first in the video series quotes Japanese war criminal Ebato Tsuyoshi as he recalls a Japanese sergeant who took a woman as a slave during the invasion of the Shandong peninsula. When food became scarce, he said the sergeant killed the woman and ate her flesh, which he shared with his squadron after telling them that it was regular meat from their battalion headquarters.

In a letter dated Feb 1, 1941, Hideo Tomura, a soldier stationed in the central city of Kaifeng, wrote about the living conditions at a "comfort station managed by the army."

Another document, provided by Jilin Provincial Archives, reflected the state of mind of a young Japanese soldier who had hoped to stay a virgin but, in the end, sought pleasure with Korean sex slaves, ultimately contracting a venereal disease.

The released documents also included Japanese military reports that summarized the situation at "comfort facilities," such as the number of troops and women.

In a report dated Feb 19, 1938, Shigeru Oki, commander of the Japanese Military Police Brigade for Central China, said forces were supplied with sex slaves in proportion to the soldiers: 25,000 Japanese troops were stationed in Nanjing at the time along with 141 sex slaves, meaning there was one woman for 178 soldiers.

China Daily-Xinhua

(China Daily European Weekly 08/21/2015 page18)