Comfort women get full compensation

Comfort women get full compensation

MANILA (AFP): Japan's embassy here yesterday assured four Filipina "comfort women" that state-subsidized compensation they received as victims of World War II sexual slavery was tax free.

"We were given assurances that the atonement money from the Asian Women's Fund (AWF) will be tax free," the embassy's political affairs director, Masato Takaoka, said, adding the assurance came from the Department of Finance.

The statement followed reports in newspapers yesterday in which the Filipinas complained that 9,000 pesos (US$346) was deducted in taxes from the compensation of 483,000-peso ($18,500) which Tokyo paid them last month from the state-subsidized AWF.

The four Filipinas were among 300 women from the Philippines, Taiwan and South Korea to receive initial payments from the AWF which was set-up last year.