SYDNEY: Three grandmothers from three different countries, speaking no common language, they had traveled far to protest outside the Japanese Consulate here.
What bound them ― a 90-year-old Taiwanese from Taipei, a 78-year-old South Korean from Seoul and an 84- year-old Dutch-Australian from Adelaide ― was their experience as sex slaves of Japan's military during World War II.
All three had participated in international conferences for Japan's former sex slaves before. But on Wednesday, just days after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan denied the military's role in coercing the women into servitude, the three were united in their fury.
"I was taken away by force by Japanese officers, and a Japanese military doctor forced me to undress to examine me before I was taken away," said Wu Hsiu-mei, 90, who had landed here the night before after a daylong flight from Taipei. "How can Abe lie to the world like that?" (以下省略)