TAIPEI: The last known World War Two-era Taiwanese “comfort woman” has passed away at the age of 92, an anti-sex trafficking organisation in Taipei said.
The term “comfort women” alludes to women forced to work in the Japanese army’s wartime brothels between 1932 and 1945.
Around 200,000 including 2,000 Taiwanese women were reportedly enslaved as sexual slaves after they were taken from occupied territories.
An activist, who wished to remain anonymous, said the octogenarian woman died on May 10, the BBC said.
According to the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation, her family had agreed to the public announcement of her death following a private funeral.
Women forced into Imperial Japan’s WW2 sexual slavery mainly hailed from its Taiwan, Korea, China, and the Philippines, among other occupied territories.
The Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation said that they will continue to keep records of the comfort women and hope the truth about the sexual abuse did not disappear with their deaths.
“We will continue to demand that the Japanese government apologies and compensates these women and their families,” it said.
Taiwan was colonised by Japan from 1895 to 1945.
