“We will help these women preserve historical evidence in their fight for an apology and compensation from Japan,” Ma said. “Sadly, it is too late for Cheng-Chen, who left this world without getting her due.”
The president made the remarks after learning of the death of 94-year-old Cheng-Chen Jan. 11 in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan.
“Each of the many times I visited her, she treated me as warmly as my own mother,” Ma said. “We cannot let the suffering of such women be forgotten as this would be an even greater disgrace.”
Forcibly sent in the early 1940s at age 19 to the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, Cheng-Chen’s lifelong wish was to finish her interrupted high school education. Earlier this year, she was awarded an honorary diploma by National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School, the institution she once attended.
The story of Cheng-Chen was featured in the 2015 Taiwan documentary “Song of the Reed,” which was shortlisted at Taiwan’s Women Make Waves Film Festival in 2014 and won an International Golden Panda Award for Documentary the same year.
Statistics from Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation revealed that 2,000 local women suffered a similar fate during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).
Cheng-Chen was among 58 former comfort women who came forward in the late 1990s seeking justice and compensation. Following her death, this number stands at three.
Late last year, Japan and South Korea reached a landmark agreement in Seoul that Japan will pay 1 billion yen (US$8.48 million) to set up a fund for the South Korean victims. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also officially apologized and offered his sincere reflection.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the Japanese government earlier this month to enter into talks on officially apologizing to and compensating Taiwan comfort women. “Tokyo is obligated to restore the dignity of these Taiwan women and provide for the welfare of the surviving victims,” the MOFA said. (YHC-JSM)
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