The memorial project is still being studied and has not been handed to the
superior department, but the results would come clear within the year, Yang
Cheng, deputy head of Miao Township.
The former comfort women have appealed to the local government and experts to
build a memorial for wartime sex slaves to show people about the truth, said
Zhu Miaochun, a lawyer with Shanghai Tianhong Law Office, who has been engaged
in comfort women study since 2000.
About 60 comfort women have been reported in China's mainland and about 20 of
them have passed away since 2001.
Among five of the comfort women in Shanghai, Zhu Qiaomei and two other comfort
women passed away in 2005, 2004 and 2002 respectively.
Shanghai was the place the comfort women system got started and the city
suffered the most from it and people have found here the sites of more than 140
"comfort houses" established by Japanese troops, said Su Zhiliang, director of
the China Comfort Women Issue Research Center.
The comfort women system forced women from various countries toserve as sex
slaves of the Japanese army in World War II.
"Under this system, at least 400,000 women were forced to serveas sex slaves
for the Japanese army. The victims included women from China's mainland, Hong
Kong, Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, Southeast Asia and Japan, as well as a
small number of white women who lived in Asia," said Su.
He said the Republic of Korea has built such a memorial hall, Taiwan Province
is also planning to build one, and China's mainland, which suffered most from
the comfort women system, should also build one.
Xinhua
