A group of Taiwan legislators made a request Thursday to their Japanese counterparts that Japan pass an opposition-proposed bill that would offer apologies and redress to former sex slaves of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
Taiwan legislators Shih Ming-te and Chin Huei-chu submitted the written request, signed by 158 of the 225 members of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan to House of Councilors President Juro Saito at the Diet building.
They were accompanied by Wang Ching-feng, a lawyer and former chief of the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation, a nongovernmental organization supporting former sex slaves in Taiwan.
The move was prompted by a bill submitted to the Diet in April by the Democratic Party of Japan urging the government to formally apologize to former wartime sex slaves and pay at least 5 million yen in compensation to each victim, Shih said later in the day.
The request is in line with a similar set of demands drawn up by a group of Japanese lawyers supporting the former sex slaves.
On April 10, the DPJ submitted the bill to the House of Councilors to "promote a resolution of issues concerning wartime victims of forced sex."
The bill calls on the Prime Minister's Office to set up a task force directly under the prime minister to chart out a clear-cut policy on the issue, which has been the focus of anger and animosity in Asian countries once subject to Japanese rule.