Kyodo News Fifty-five years after the end of World War II, a Japanese foundation is facing an uphill battle in its sixth year of efforts to compensate Asian women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military.
Established by the government in July 1995 as a nonprofit organization, the Asian Women's Fund collects contributions from the public to pay compensation to women in South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines who were forced by the Imperial Japanese Army into providing sexual services before and during the war.
At the same time, the government set up an unofficial state fund described as a medical and welfare support fund for the women, who had been termed "comfort women" by the military.