Taiwan loses only ‘comfort women’ memorial as land sold at auction
Statue in Tainan city erected in 2018 moved to warehouse after requests for other arrangements were ‘not granted’, opposition lawmaker says
The bronze statue had stood at a busy intersection in Taiwan’s southern city of Tainan for six years. It was temporarily moved into a warehouse on Wednesday evening, a lawmaker from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) told the Taipei-based China Times.
The statue stood on KMT-owned land that had been auctioned off, the newspaper quoted Hsieh Lung-chieh as saying. He said he had been asking the Tainan city government for over a year to help make other arrangements for the statue, but the request “was not granted”.
“The ‘comfort women’ issue is a major incident concerning women’s rights, the statue represents women persecuted in the war,” Hsieh told the China Times. “Currently, there are many wars around the world, including between Russia and Ukraine, and we all need to remember the lessons of war and hope for world peace.”
He said community associations would continue to correspond with the Tainan government for an alternative site for the statue. The city government is dominated by Taiwan’s ruling independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, while the KMT is viewed as more Beijing-friendly.
