Month: December 2015

Eighty-six year old Filipino Lola Fidencia David was a “comfort woman” sex slave to the Japanese during the Second World War as she spoke during a  press conference in Winnipeg, Man. on October 17, 2013. (BRIAN DONOGH/WINNIPEG SUN/QMI AGENCY) By Ted Alcuitas As Japan and South Korea announced an agreement Monday (Dec. 28) to compensate Korean “comfort women” who were forced to serve Japanese soldiers sexually in World War II, questions remain as to the fate of Philippine women (over a 1,000) who were also forced into sex slavery. Japan has maintained that the issue was settled when diplomatic ties were normalized in 1965, when Tokyo offered financial aid to South Korea in return for Seoul dropping all damage claims related to its 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. Mr. Abe has in the past questioned whether comfort women were coerced and declined to personally apologize. There are no reliable records on how many women were involved, but mainstream historians’ estimates range from 20,000 to 200,000. Many were from Korea, then a Japanese colony, as well as other Asian nations and a few Westerners. Despite differences in the historical details, former comfort women have provided consistent accounts of females as young as teenagers being coerced or tricked into joining the brothels. We reprint the following article from the Winnipeg Sun Octobeer 17, 2013 for background. The Philippines native had...