Hao Yuelian talks about her war memories in Qingxu County, North China’s Shanxi Province, Aug. 15, 2017. Hao is one of six comfort women still alive in the province. Aged 15 in 1943, Hao was raped by Japanese soldiers in her home and then taken away and imprisoned for about one month before her parents paid for her release. She was later captured again and then rescued. Hao was married at 18, and she was unable to have children. She adopted her sister’s daughter Chang Aixian. Hao’s husband died in 2006, and now she lives with her adopted daughter. Hao suffers from high blood pressure and has difficulty hearing and walking. (Photo: China News Service/Wei Liang)
Old age is taking the lives of "comfort women", a euphemism for girls and women forced into sex slavery by Japanese soldiers during WWII. Across the Chinese mainland, only 14 "comfort women" are still alive. Aug. 14 was designated the International Memorial Day for Comfort Women in 2012 by the 11th Asian Alliance Conference for Comfort Women. (Photo/China News Service)
