Taiwanese Comfort Women Survivors and Their Families : The Complexity of Identity, Motherhood, and Intergenerational Implications

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army forced many girls and women from Taiwan, Korea, China, and other Asian countries to serve as sexual slaves to the soldiers. Although the exploitative system of “comfort women” was widespread, its effects on the survivors’ identities throughout their lifetimes as well as its intergenerational effects on their families remain insufficiently explored in the existing literature. This doctoral dissertation aims to address this gap by analyzing how a complex interplay between early-life sexual trauma and certain structural factors influenced older Taiwanese comfort women survivors’ multiple identities (i.e., as women, as sexual violence survivors, as older adults).

Additionally, the study retraces the ramifications of sexual trauma on the second and third generations of these women’s families, such as their experiences of mother–daughter relationships. To this end, an autobiographical reflection is utilized to study how Taiwanese comfort women survivors were supported by the NGOs and social worker activists, and analyzes how they were socially and politically positioned, at the local and international levels, in the comfort women redress movement.  Additionally, a life-history analysis of two deceased Indigenous Truku comfort women is conducted, drawing on existing literature.

Furthermore, in-depth, semi-structured interviews are conducted with ten family members of one Truku and three Han-Chinese comfort women (all deceased). Several important findings emerged from these interviews. First, the survivors’ sexual trauma interplayed with multiple structural factors (i.e., colonialism, patriarchy, class exploitation, cultural and gender norms, local and global social-political factors), to shape their life trajectories. Second, family members recognized the survivors’ intersectional roles (as women, as sexual violence survivors, as older adults, etc.) and  generally empathized with survivors’ sexual victimization, although the second generation expressed more ambivalence compared to the third generation. Third, important contextual factors influenced family responses, including participant-survivor relationships, local and global activism campaigns, and changing societal gender norms. Fourth, although the second and third generations were profoundly affected by their (grand)mothers’ experiences as comfort women, the family members demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of this challenging history. Based on these findings, the study advocates for increased attention and support for the descendants of comfort women, emphasizing the involvement of families in the recovery process of conflictrelated sexual violence (CRSV) survivors.

The dissertation concludes by proposing a culturallydriven, multilayered approach to support comfort women and other CRSV survivors and their families.