badasswomen:

Liu Huang A-tao (劉黃阿桃): Grandma A-tao speaks her mind.

1923-2011

When Liu Huang was 19, she left her native Taiwan to go to Indonesia, presumably to work as a nurse for the Japanese. When she arrived, however, she was forced into being a “comfort woman”— a woman who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese men on the front lines. An estimated 30,000 women across the Asian theater served as “comfort women.”

Within three days of arriving, Liu Huang suffered an injury from battle that resulted in a hysterectomy. She finally returned to Taiwan in 1945. 

She married a retired soldier and adopted a child with him after the war.

In 1992, former comfort women from South Korea came forward and filed suit against the Japanese government. Liu Huang was greatly encouraged by the actions of these women, inspired by the idea that  “It is not us, but the Japanese government, that should feel ashamed.”

In 1999, Liu Huang was the first Taiwanese woman to file official complaint with the Japanese government regarding sexual enslavement during World War II. In 2002, Liu Huang and a group of other former Taiwanese comfort women lost their suite with the Japanese government. However, they were in the process of joining with Korean and Japanese former comfort women to push for parliamentary legislative action. 

Liu Huang died without ever receiving a formal apology from the Japanese government.

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