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In April 1941, a group of Japanese invading forces in China gang-raped Zhao Runmei in northern Shanxi province. The soldiers had first killed Zhao’s foster parents in front of her, stabbing her father’s throat with a bayonet and slashing the back of her mother’s head. And then the attack on her began.
Zhao was then taken to a blockhouse to be raped daily, a horror that lasted for more than 40 days. She was just 16 years old.
More than 80 years later, the children of 18 now-deceased Chinese “comfort women” – including Zhao’s family – have filed the first-ever lawsuit in China against Japan for alleged crimes committed during the second world war.
The plaintiffs are seeking financial compensation of up to two million Chinese yuan (around A$416,000) each and a formal public apology for the abuses the women allegedly endured, such as kidnapping, detention, rape, torture and the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases.
Aside from the legal and political implications of the case, it has also reopened a complex debate over identity and language. The term “comfort women” has long been used to describe these victim-survivors, but many reject the term and prefer what they believe is a more accurate description: sex slaves.
Simple answer: men used these women to “comfort” themselves but in reality they were very much sex slaves.
There, I solved the debate for them 🙄