French painter Christian Poirot is drawing an oil painting. (Photo provided to China News Service)
(ECNS) -- French painter Christian Poirot has finished his latest oil paintings based on "comfort women" in Nanjing City, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province, according to the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing's Massacre by Japanese Invaders.
"Comfort women" is a euphemism for hundreds of thousands of girls and women in Asia-Pacific countries or regions who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army in World War II, and for whom the Japanese government has refused legal responsibility. Surviving "comfort women" now only number 14 on the Chinese mainland after a 90-year-old died in August.
It took the painter a month to create the sex slave-themed oil paintings to expose the atrocities committed by Japanese forces. The paintings have been donated to galleries in Nanjing.
Poirot said he was deeply touched by the images of comfort women and wanted to reveal the suffering of the victims. He also called for joint efforts for world peace.
In the past, Poirot created oil paintings themed on the 1937 massacre, where as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed.
He said he would finish another painting about comfort women after returning to France and bring it back to Nanjing before Dec. 13, China's National Memorial Day for Nanjing Massacre Victims.
