People's Daily Comments: Agony beyond words: life of the "comfort women" survivor

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At least 400,000 women were forced to become de facto sex slaves, or more commonly referred to as "comfort women", by the Japanese army during the World War II. Victims include women in China, the Korean Peninsula, southeast Asia, and some white women living in Asia. This is the most painful chapter of the history of mankind, as well as a disgrace to humanity.

During 1932 to 1945, over 200,000 women in China were forced into comfort women by the Japanese troop. We can’t help wondering if any of these victims survived, or if they ever did, what kind of life they are living now.

Starting from December 12, 2012, Chinese film director Guo Ke spent two years on producing a documentary called Thirty Two, picturing the life story of 92-year-old Wei Shaolan in Guilin, south China.

Seventy years ago, Wei was seized and forced to become a comfort woman. She was tortured by the "Japanese monsters" for three months, which has haunted her as a nightmare for the rest of her life. Wei once tried to poison herself to death but was saved by her neighbors. “Tears cannot express my endless pain,” Wei said. It is beyond our imagination how hard and desperate life was for these women. Their life-long agony is beyond speech.

Guo Ke’s documentary is named Thirty Two as there were merely 32 comfort women survived in China when he took the film. The number has declined to 15 now. The survivors' suffering and the life-long agony should not only be portrayed in history books as figures, but be listened and understood by the whole world. A common understanding of civil society shall be reached to show those survivors respect, and prevent them from getting hurt again.