Taiwan Today
Date: January 15, 2016
ROC President Ma Ying-jeou said Jan. 14 that he was deeply saddened by
President Ma Ying-jeou (right) and Cheng-Chen Tao share a moment during his 2011 visit to her home in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan. (Courtesy of Presidential Office)
the death of former comfort woman Cheng-Chen Tao and will continue working to achieve justice for Taiwan women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during World War II.
“We will help these women preserve historical evidence in their fight for an apology and compensation from Japan,” Ma said. “Sadly, it is too late for Cheng-Chen, who left this world without getting her due.”
The president made the remarks after learning of the death of 94-year-old Cheng-Chen Jan. 11 in Pingtung County of southern Taiwan.
“Each of the many times I visited her, she treated me as warmly as my own mother,” Ma said. “We cannot let the suffering of such women be forgotten as this would be an even greater disgrace.”
Forcibly sent in the early 1940s at age 19 to the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, Cheng-Chen’s lifelong wish was to finish her interrupted high school education. Earlier this year, she was awarded an honorary diploma by National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School, the institution she once attended. [FULL STORY]
