China's 'comfort women' in new book

These photographs from Chen Qinggang's book, Memoirs of Chinese Comfort Women, show women who were enslaved by Japanese forces during World War II.

The lives of these women are far from comfortable. Other than the emotional scars that will likely never heal, many of them live amid poverty and disease.

Abducted by Japanese soldiers when they were young, the "comfort women" were coerced to work in Japanese military brothels. Some of them were as young as 13 when they were picked up, Chen was told.

After a period of torture that ranged from a few months to years, some fell sick, some were abandoned, and others ran away to hide in the mountains until the Japanese troops left.

Chen says many survivors changed their names and moved to villages far away from their original homes to avoid being discriminated against by society. Chen may have been the first person in whom many of them confided.

"When they shared their miseries with me, it was also the first time that many such families had heard of their stories. It was too private to tell," says Chen, who usually paid families several visits before the elderly women opened up to him.

The victims of the atrocities await a sincere apology from the Japanese government, he says. In recent years, some of Chen's interviewees have passed away. In some ways, Chen's book has also attempted to document history.

The book now can be purchased on Chinese online shops such as Dangdang and Jingdong, priced at 39 yuan ($6.40). The English and Japanese versions are still in translation and are likely to be available overseas by year-end, according to Gao Yang, chief editor of China Photography Publishing House.