'Comfort women' survivor dies in Hunan, leaving six on Chinese mainland

(ECNS) -- A 99-year-old Chinese survivor of the Japanese military's World War II "comfort women" system died Wednesday in Pingjiang County, Hunan Province. Her death leaves six registered survivors on the Chinese mainland.

Born in 1928 in Changsha, the woman known by the pseudonym Grandma Hui was taken by authorities of the Japanese puppet regime in the summer of 1945 under the pretext of manual labor.

According to the Research Center for Comfort Women at Shanghai Normal University, she and other women were forced to work during the day and subjected to sexual enslavement by Japanese soldiers at night for more than 10 days.

Hui was identified as a surviving victim in August 2024 following field research, interviews and archival verification conducted by researchers from Shanghai Normal University, the center said.

The research center continues to collect testimonies, conduct site visits and examine historical records documenting the experiences of the victims.

According to historical research cited by the center, about 400,000 women across Asia were forced into sexual enslavement by the Japanese military during World War II, nearly half of them Chinese.

(By intern Lin Qiaochu)