The Asian Women's Foundation (AWF) of Japan recently issued "the last notification" to the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation (TWRF), calling for its assistance in getting Taiwanese comfort women to accept compensation provided by the Foundation. Otherwise, AWF promised to look for another "partner" organization in Taiwan. TWRF points out that the AWF is a private organization. What Taiwanese "comfort women" want is not the Japanese people's money, but to earn back their respect. They will not accept anything less than an apology and compensation from the Japanese government.

Even to this day, one still hears occasional denials of the forced recruitment of "comfort women" by Japanese rightists. Although new Japanese school textbooks, in use since April 1, devote only a couple of lines to the fact that Japan forcefully recruited "comfort women" during the Second World War, Japanese rightists have still launched vociferous protests. Their position is that "comfort women" were actually "public prostitutes," managed by civilians without the involvement of the Japanese government. The undeniable fact, however, is that in 1993 Secretary-General of the Cabinet Kono Yopei issued a public statement admitting that Japan "forced" Korean and Taiwanese women to work as "comfort women" during the war. (Independence Post, 4/3/97, p. 4; United Daily News, 4/1/97, p. 10).

*Taiwan is far too unconcerned by the "comfort women" issue. Here are a few examples: A male supervisor who felt that an office without women was too boring suggested during an office meeting that they "call on a few women to come and be comfort women!" Another true example is the article published by "New Concepts" magazine. Given a prominent position, this article claims that it would be better for women to be "comfort women" than go for training at the Chengkungling Drill Camp. The humor of these intended "jokes" is not only uncritical towards the violence of forced prostitution, it also gleefully employs the epithet "comfort women" to debase the status of women.

*TWRF and other organizations may initiate protests against Japanese government and we will keep you informed and invite you to support the cause.

The McKay Hospital, first in Taiwan to establish a Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Harassment, recently reported a case in which one of its General Surgeons, Pan Chin-chung, battered his wife. Pan's wife, Huang Hui-chuan, provided a certificate of facial wounds and brought charges against Pan for continued beatings over a ten-year period. Huang charged that Pan even beat her mother when she came over to mediate. The Peitou District Police charged Pan with attempted murder. Pan demanded access to his wife's statement, countered with charges that his wife had wounded his face, and further implied in front of a group of journalists that his wife suffered from mental instability. McKay Hospital officials, claiming this to be an internal affair, denied that Pan had made any infraction of a physician's ethical responsibility and thus refused to remove him. The event has caused concern that when women go to McKay for certification of sexual violence, the certifying doctor might be a wife-battering physician. McKay officials ambiguously claimed that Pan's responsibilities would be taken care of. (Independence Post, 4/9/97, p. 5; United Daily, p. 5).

*Wife-battering is an internal affair? The McKay Hospital's explanation is a perfect hotbed for domestic violence and casts doubt over the reliability of its "Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Harassments." A wife is not a second-class citizen. How can our laws tolerate it while one person repeatedly beats another?

Taiwanese people still generally feel that a woman is lucky if she marries a [???], but empirical research into domestic violence reveals that wife-batterers can be found in every part of society. This man's wife is one example; former anchorwoman Juan Shu-hsiang is another case--the Taipei District Attorney's office has only just issued charges based on Juan Shu-hsiang's accusation of her husband for beating (4/1/97 United Daily News, p. 7). If our society continues to condone such violence, female victims will not have much choice but to "follow in Teng Ju-wen's footstep's" (Teng, subject of a highly-publicized trial, killed her husband in self-defense after years of abuse).

"Long Live Nanking!" the new book by Hu Hualing, a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Colorado, covers the life of Sister Waitlin , the acting President of Jinling College for Women. During the Nanking Massacre, when Japanese troops raped and killed hundreds of Chinese women, Ms. Waitlin sheltered some ten thousand women from the ravages of the rampaging Japanese, earning a name for herself among Nanking residents as "the living Buddha." (4/8/97 United Daily, p. 18).

The "Feng Chia Pervert," Tsai Hsien-chang, now in captivity, raped over ten women. One of his preferred techniques was to pretend that he had forgotten his key and ask a local locksmith to open the door. Once inside, he would await the female tenant's return in order to rape her. (4/4/97 Independence Post, p. 7).

*The Feng Chia Pervert's methods give food for thought: the fact that he would dare ask for a locksmith's assistance and was not afraid of being recognized shows that he was convinced his victims would not report the crime! Rape is a crime with an extremely high rate of repeated offence. Virtually every rapist who is caught is a repeated offender, with more offences than the rapist himself can even remember. Recent revisions to the penal code suggested by the Ministry of Justice still do not change rape into a public offence, giving rapists a break from the law.

The Ministry of Education's 1998 budget, which still provides NT$5 million for sending female students to the Chengkungling Drill Camp, came under fire from legislators. Some lawmakers even suggested requiring last year's female trainees to repay the government for expenses incurred. However, Wu Ching, Minister of Education, announced the project would go ahead as planned, expressing his belief that it was widely supported and exercised a beneficial effect as a model of gender equality in society. (4/15/97, China Times, p. 7).

The Infant Rights Union disclosed its report on abandoned babies. Between 1992 and 1995, the male-female ratio gradually grew greater and greater. By 1995, 34.91% were male while 65.09% were female. Since 86% of the babies abandoned were healthy, the report concludes that they were born out of wedlock. (4/15/97, China Times, p. 7).

A bakery store owner in Taipei, suspecting that one of his female employees had stolen money, took her downstairs to conduct a search, Looking for cash, he put his hands down her bra and pants. The police, acting on charges brought by the female employee, arrested the owner for indecency. In an appeal, an upper court ruling deemed that the accused had only used inappropriate methods in his search. Hence there was no indecent intent and the owner was judged not guilty. (4/7/97 United Daily, p.7)