ELEVEN former Chinese “comfort women” for Japanese troops in World War II have had their affidavits notarized to save the evidence because of their age. The women who are in their 70s to 90s and their witnesses completed the process at the Notarial Office of Wuzhishan City, Hainan, in the first such notarization in the province. As the experiences of these women provide vital evidence of crimes by Japanese troops, notaries considered it was vital to have their testimony written down and certified. The notarization was proposed by Professor Su Zhiliang of the research center on China’s “comfort women” at Shanghai Normal University. Su asked Chen Houzhi, a local researcher in Hainan, to help complete the procedure. More than 200,000 young women from Indonesia, Korea, China, the Philippines and other Asian countries were forced to serve as sex slaves, who were called “comfort women,” for the invading Japanese troops during the war. In recent years, some survivors have sought compensation from the Japanese government. During the war, many Hainan women became “comfort women,” and some local researchers have made a study of the issue over the years. So far, only 11 of these women have been found still alive. (SD-Agencies)