Taiwan Curriculum Protests: Inflict no more pain on ‘comfort women’: group

Curriculum Protests: Inflict no more pain on ‘comfort women’: group

Staff writer, with CNA

A women’s rights group on Monday criticized what it called the “debasing” of “comfort women” in the dispute over revised high-school curriculum guidelines, urging the public not to inflict more pain on victims of sexual slavery during World War II.

“As the only civic group in Taiwan focused on the human rights of ‘comfort women,’ the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation deeply regrets the recent debate over whether ‘comfort women’ were forced [into sexual slavery],” it said in a statement.

The foundation urged the public not to “add insult to injury” by questioning the women’s horrific experiences.

Protesters have taken to the streets to oppose changes to the curriculum guidelines, which according to the demonstrators “are presented from the perspective of Chinese unification.”

The controversial modifications include the term “retrocession of Taiwan,” instead of the original phrase “taking over Taiwan,” to describe the end of 50 years of Japanese colonial rule and Taiwan’s subsequent handover to the Republic of China.

While most of the protesters’ anger is directed toward what they call opaque or secretive changes to the curriculum guidelines that present a “China-centric” view, a handful of opponents have also questioned a modification related to “comfort women.”

The change describes the victims of Japanese sex slavery during World War II as “women forced to become sex slaves” instead of simply as “comfort women.”

Some opponents of the curriculum changes have said that not all comfort women were forced.

In the statement on Monday, the foundation said its survey of 59 “comfort women” in Taiwan showed that almost all were either forced or tricked into sex slavery by brokers, police officers, district offices, their own families and relatives or Japanese authorities.

Even if a small minority of women knew they were going to be “comfort women,” they agreed to do so because of poverty and to survive, the foundation said.

“By no means can we use the word ‘voluntary’ to oversimplify the oppression suffered by these women from the lower levels [of society],” the foundation said.