Cold comfort for former sex slaves

Many women abused in military brothels by the Japanese army during World War II are now neglected by society and living in desperate conditions, as Peng Yining reports from Hainan province.

At 8 am in the jungle of Hainan Island, China's southernmost province, the sun was burning off the mist in a quiet village in Chengmai county, and even at that early stage of the day, the heat was beginning to make Li Meijin's tiled-roofed apartment unbearably hot and humid.

The surrounding countryside hasn't changed much in the 69 years that have passed since a 16-year-old Li escaped from a Japanese military brothel, running haphazardly through the same forest of giant banana trees and banyans.