The government might soon enter talks with the Japanese government and demand that it offer an official apology and provide compensation to Taiwanese women used as sex slaves by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, a diplomatic official said yesterday.
Huang Ming-lung (黃明朗), secretary-general of the East Asian Relations Commission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a regular press conference that the ministry would bring up the issue with Japanese officials as soon as the government resumes operations after the New Year break.
Attending an exhibition on Sunday highlighting litigation by Taiwanese against Japan over the issue of comfort women, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said he regretted the Japanese government’s failure to acknowledge its mistakes and promised to seek justice for the women.
“The position of the Taiwanese government has been that the Japanese government has to apologize and compensate the comfort women as soon as possible,” Huang said.
Japan has rejected such requests from the Taiwanese government in the past, but Taipei has never wavered from its position, he said.
Although some Taiwanese victims, along with victims from Korea and the Philippines, had previously obtained compensation from a fund sponsored by several Japanese civic groups, they considered it inappropriate and insufficient because Tokyo has refused to admit the women were either recruited or swindled by the Japanese government to become comfort women, Huang said.
The number of comfort women conscripted by Japan during World War II is estimated to have reached 500,000 throughout East and Southeast Asia, the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation says.
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