The 'comfort women' of World War Two

Between 1932 and 1945, hundreds of thousands of women and girls across Asia were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army.Referred to as "comfort women", they were taken from countries including Korea, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia to be raped by Japanese soldiers.Today, the issue remains a source of tension between Japan and its neighbours, with continuing campaigns to compensate the few surviving victims.Dan Hardoon speaks to Chinese survivor Peng Zhuying who, along with her elder sister, was captured and taken to a "comfort station" in central China.This programme contains disturbing content.(Photo: People visit a museum dedicated to the victims, on the site of a former comfort station in China. Credit: Yang Bo/China News Service/VCG/Getty Images)

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Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.