Survivor of Japan's 'comfort women' system dies, leaving 6 on Chinese mainland

SHANGHAI -- A 99-year-old survivor of the Japanese army's World War II-era "comfort women" system passed away early Wednesday in Pingjiang county, Central China's Hunan province, leaving only six registered survivors remaining on the Chinese mainland.

The survivor, under the pseudonym Grandma Hui, was born in 1928 in Changsha, Hunan province. In the summer of 1945, local puppet authorities, acting on orders from Japanese troops, conscripted women under the pretext of "doing laundry and manual labor" and Hui was among them, according to the Research Center for Comfort Women at Shanghai Normal University.

Under tight surveillance by patrol soldiers during the day, these women were forced to work for the Japanese army without pay, while at night they were reduced to "comfort women" and subjected to sexual enslavement. Hui endured humiliation and agony for more than 10 days.

In August 2024, the Hunan Investigation Team of the Research Center for Comfort Women at Shanghai Normal University conducted field research in Pingjiang county. Through interviews with Grandma Hui and archival verification, the team officially confirmed her as a surviving victim of the Japanese military'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 provinces like 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.