Survivor of Japan's 'comfort women' system dies, leaving 7 on Chinese mainland

SHANGHAI -- A 96-year-old survivor of the Japanese army's World War II-era "comfort women" system passed away on Wednesday in Central China's Hunan province, leaving only seven registered survivors remaining on the Chinese mainland.

The survivor, born in 1930 in Hunan's Huarong county, was abducted by Japanese soldiers in 1943. Along with other girls taken from various locations, she was held in a local Japanese military stronghold, where they endured horrific sexual abuse, according to the Research Center for Comfort Women at Shanghai Normal University.

The traumatic experience left deep physical and psychological scars, and she kept it a secret for more than 70 years.

In May 2021, with the support of her family, the survivor shared her harrowing wartime experiences with a Hunan-based research team from the research center. Through oral testimony, on-site investigations, and the examination of local county annals and historical records, the center confirmed her identity as a survivor of the Japanese army's "comfort women" system.

Previous research has shown that some 400,000 women in Asia were forced to be "comfort women" -- sexual slaves for the Japanese army during World War II -- and nearly half of them were Chinese.

The research center has conducted multiple investigations in the provinces of Hunan and Shanxi, collecting information through site visits, testimonies of survivors, and historical records to establish research archives on victims of the Japanese army's "comfort women" system.