Chinese Former Sex Slave Speaks Out

Zhou Fenying, a 90 year-old woman in China, revealed she was a sex slave in a brothel run by the Japanese army in World War II. She said she was abducted by Japanese soldiers when she was 22 and then spent two months locked in a shanty brothel with nearly 40 other young Chinese women. They were forced to serve as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers. “We were labeled with numbers while we were there and were not allowed to have any contact with the outside world. We were also seriously beaten if we opposed the soldiers. Every night I could hear other girls weeping bitterly and desperately and I also cried a lot. I eventually caught an illness in my eyes and I have been blind ever since.”

Her son said the family kept her secret. “We thought it was a humiliation and a permanent spiritual wound on my mother. So, we were all reluctant to mention it. My father has never mentioned the phrase ‘comfort women’ around me in my entire life. But my entire family believes that it was not my mother’s fault that she was forced into becoming a sex slave, and that she is a victim who has suffered. Her experience reflects a historic tragedy.”
Information from China Daily

It is unfortunate that few Americans understand the extent of Japanese brutality in World War II since the only education contemporary American youth get about that war is the Holocaust. Few understand why so many people in Korea, China, Thailand, Indonesia or Malaysia still retain bitter memories of Japanese occupation which frequently resulted in people being oppressed and brutalized. A continual problem is failure of the Japanese government to take responsibility for its nation’s actions and to offer financial compensation, let alone an apology.