pain still fresh for WWII sex slave

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{this artical is to long so i just posted what was important, if yall want to read the full artical click on the link at the bottom of this artical}

By Jill Dougherty

CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- She's 78 years old, but for Lee Young-soo, life as she knew it ended at age 15 -- when the Japanese government forced her to become a sex slave for its military members during World War II.

"I was abducted at age 15 by the Japanese Imperial Army," she said. "I was put on a Japanese naval ship. There were 300 military men there and five girls, including myself."

Lee is among a dwindling number of "comfort women" still alive. The term "comfort woman" is used to describe the thousands of girls and women whom Japan forced into sex slavery before and during World War II.

Lee and other protesters, many of them elderly Korean-Americans, came to Washington this week to protest as President Bush hosts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

They are demanding Japan issue an official apology once and for all for what happened to the estimated 200,000 "comfort women" -- many of whom ranged in age from 12 to 20 -- more than 60 years ago.

Bush, Abe have 'personal visit' on issue

Abe said he spoke with Bush and a U.S. congressional delegation about the issue.

"I do have deep-hearted sympathies that the people who had to serve as 'comfort women' were placed in extreme hardships and had to suffer that sacrifice," Abe said through a translator. "I, as prime minister of Japan, expressed my apologies, and also expressed my apologies for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance."

Bush said he and Abe had a "personal visit on the issue" and that "he told me what was on his heart about the issue, and I appreciated his candor."

"The 'comfort women' issue is a regrettable chapter in the history of the world, and I accept the prime minister's apology," Bush said.

Abe infuriated the international community in March when he said there was no evidence the women were forced into sex slavery. He later changed his position to conform with a 1993 apology by Japan's chief cabinet minister to those "who suffered immeasurable pain and incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women." But that statement did not end the controversy.

'My parents thought I had died'

Lee, a Korean citizen, abhors the term "comfort women" to describe the horrible ordeal into which she was forced. She refers to herself as a former "sexual slave." She says she, like the other girls and young women, was forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II.

She was held for three years. She once tried to escape and hid in a cave, but Japanese soldiers found her, beat her and tortured her until she lost consciousness, she said.

"After three years, I went home. My parents thought I had died," Lee said. "They were making a ceremony for my spirit because they thought I was dead. I looked like a beggar -- beaten, bleeding."

She added, "I looked terrible and they thought it was my ghost that had come back. They began to hit me and tried to get rid of me. But they finally realized it was me, and my parents fainted."

Like most of the women forced into sex slavery, Lee never spoke about it publicly until the early 1990s when the South Korean government quietly urged the women to come forward for help. Many of the women were from Korea and China.

"I would rather die than disclose my shameful past," she said from Lafayette Park, across from the White House. "It was so shameful, so embarrassing, so awkward to disclose my painful past in public. But I felt I had to speak up."

After decades of denying the existence of the sex slavery, Japan's chief cabinet secretary in 1993 conceded women were forced into prostitution and that the Japanese army was involved to some degree. Tokyo has considered that statement as an official apology, although the former sex slaves and their governments have said it didn't go far enough.

Source: CNN WORLD