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Ming Gao
Ming Gao

Opinion | Justice from Japan: China’s first ‘comfort women’ lawsuit faces long slog

  • The lawsuit filed in Shanxi by the families of 18 women forced into sexual slavery by the imperial Japanese army is the first such challenge in a Chinese court
  • It marks a critical moment in the movement, but success will depend on domestic and international support

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Two statues symbolising “comfort women” at a park in Shanghai. The Chinese government’s attitude to the issue of justice for the women forced by the Japanese military to work in wartime brothers has been seen as ambiguous. Photo: AFP
Ming Gao

In April 1941, 16-year-old Zhao Runmei was raped by a group of Japanese soldiers invading China. Seconds ago, they had killed her foster parents in front of her. In an account published in a book, she said: “Right there, beside the bloody corpses, I was gangraped by them right away on the spot. Afterwards, I was taken as a ‘comfort woman’ to be raped every day.”

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The late Zhao is among 18 women whose families recently filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government in a court in Shanxi province. They seek compensation of up to 2 million yuan (US$276,600) each and a public apology for the suffering the women endured, which included being kidnapped, raped, beaten and tortured, and contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
The euphemistic term “comfort women”, from the Japanese word ianfu, has been used to describe the countess women, mostly Korean and Chinese, forced into sexual slavery under a system implemented by the imperial Japanese military between 1932 and 1945. In China, the system is associated with the aftermath of the 1937 Nanking massacre.

The Shanxi lawsuit, the result of a campaign spearheaded by activist Zhang Shuangbing, is groundbreaking. This is not simply because it represents China’s first domestic legal challenge of Japan’s wartime atrocities after decades of largely unsuccessful transnational battles for justice, with dozens of cases filed in Japan from 1995 to 2007. It is also because it signifies a critical moment in the movement to win justice for Chinese comfort women.

Crucially, the lawsuit marks a shift from seeking redress abroad and draws inspiration from precedents in South Korea.

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Last November, the Seoul High Court ordered the Japanese government to pay 16 former comfort women in South Korea 200 million won (US$146,500) each. In 2021, the Seoul Central District Court ruled that Tokyo had to pay 12 former comfort women 100 million won each.
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