MOFA calls for Japan negotiations on ROC's war 'comfort women'

By Joseph Yeh ,The China Post
December 29, 2015, 12:10 am TWN

MOFA spokeswoman Eleanor Wang told local media that the R.O.C. government has repeatedly urged the Japanese government to officially apologize and compensate Taiwanese citizens who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II, who are known euphemistically as comfort women.

In the wake of the latest agreement reached between Japan and South Korea regarding the compensation of South Korean comfort women, Wang noted that Taiwan has been closely monitoring the latest developments and has established contact with local organizations concerning the Taiwanese comfort women issue.

The nation's representative office in Japan has also been engaged in talks with the Japanese authorities over the issue and has been calling on Tokyo to promptly launch bilateral negotiations over the comfort women issue to compensate victims in Taiwan.

Once Taiwan has received an official response from Japan over the matter, the government will engage in talks with related government branches in the hope the issue can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, she said.

Wang's comments were made following foreign media reports that Japan and South Korea had reached a historic deal to settle the issue on Monday.

Japan will pay 1 billion Japanese yen (US$8.3 million) to a South Korean-administered fund for the victims.

The announcement comes after Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Seoul for discussions with his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also offered an apology to "everyone who has suffered lots of pain and received scars that are difficult to heal physically and mentally," Kishida told reporters after the meeting on Monday.

Comfort women were women forced into prostitution, working in brothels created by the Empire of Japan during World War II.

The issue remains a sensitive one for Asian neighbors nearly 70 years after Japan's defeat.

According to the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation, more than 2,000 Taiwanese women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during the war, but only four of those to have spoken openly of their suffering at the hands of the Japanese forces are still alive today.