Untold stories of Malaya’s ‘comfort women’

 

MCA’s Michael Chong clearly remembers the first time he was contacted by a former comfort woman, whose story made headlines in 1993.

PETALING JAYA: One night in 1943, a 16-year-old girl was settling down for the night when four men armed with bayonets barged into her home in Sepang and dragged her into a truck.

No one was able to save her. The men threatened to shoot her parents as the truck drove away, taking her to a bungalow where she lived the next two years as a “comfort woman”, a euphemism for those forced into prostitution at brothels, or “comfort stations”, during the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

Nearly 30 years have passed since she recounted her wartime experiences to MCA complaints bureau chief Michael Chong, but he remembers their meeting in 1993 like it was just yesterday.

“She was the first comfort woman I dealt with. I still remember she had taken a bus to come all the way to my office and told me her story in tears,” he said.

Chong recalled her accounts of having to “entertain up to 12 Japanese soldiers every day” and how she had wanted to commit suicide, but was often told by her mother to “stay strong” whenever they met at the fence of the comfort station.

“I was very touched by her story,” said Chong, adding that he later received news of three more comfort women cases: two from Sandakan and another in Kota Kinabalu. They had all come forward for the first time in 50 years, after reading the testimonials of other comfort women from neighbouring countries.

Determined to offer these women some closure before they died, Chong attempted to bring the matter to the Japanese embassy in Kuala Lumpur but in vain, as he was told the matter had been settled when Japan gave Malaysia two merchant vessels several years back.

Michael Chong in 1993 listening to the stories of a comfort woman. (Michael Chong pic)

“The government did not support my fight, they said I shouldn’t bring up bad memories from many years ago. But I was doing it at the request of the victims, what was wrong with that?

“I wasn’t asking anyone to build a monument for comfort women. They never wanted financial compensation. They just wanted Japan to acknowledge that this happened,” he said.

Clement Liang, who specialises in Japanese war history in Malaya, said the government was especially focused on developing the country in the 90’s, and played down the issue of comfort women for the sake of good relations with Japan.

He said it would be unfair to argue about the past with the Japanese government now, but stressed that it was important for Malaysians to “take it as a lesson that our women must be protected”.

According to him, Umno Youth had made a call for victims to speak out and request for compensation in 1993, but most of the women’s stories never saw the light of day.

Japanese war historian Clement Liang.

It was also during the early 1990’s that Liang was in contact with a research group from Tokyo fighting for the rights of existing comfort women, including those in Malaysia.

He clearly recalls a Penangite coming forward to reveal her story to the research group. Her name was Rosalind Saw, a single mother based at a comfort station at the junction of Burma Road and Yahudi Road (now Jalan Zainal Abidin).

“She was forced to serve the Japanese soldiers continuously, sometimes over 30 of them on a busy day. She didn’t even have time to put on her clothes in the morning and was not allowed to talk to other comfort women in the house. If she did, she would be slapped,” said Liang.

Despite the atrocities, Saw fought to survive for the sake of her two daughters who were being taken care of by her landlady and neighbours. She eventually managed to leave when she was impregnated by one of the soldiers.

It has been around 80 years since then, but Liang thinks the silence from Malaysia “is not right”. He said: “It is true that that part of history is over, but we must never forget that it happened. It’s an example of how women are always the worst victims of war.”

Andrew Barber, author of “Kuala Lumpur at War, 1939-1945”, noted that the majority of comfort women in Japanese-occupied Malaya were Chinese, most of whom were stationed in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Penang. Some were also sent to Sumatra, Indonesia.

Following the war, he said many of them were ostracised by their communities when they returned home. Some even had to move away to hide their “shameful” past, which took a large toll on their psychological well-being.

“There were no discussions or conversations at all about comfort women, until the 1990s. More women wanted to have their stories told, but I fear we have missed that boat as almost all of them would have passed away by now,” said Barber.

While the country may never know the true extent of what these comfort women faced, he said it was worth “digging out” such stories to “periodically remind ourselves about the behaviours of mankind”.

“This is a story that’s been deliberately buried for years. Their generation has now passed on, but the lesson we could learn is that it is best to have these things out in the open, so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.” - FMT