"Then one morning in 1992, she heard a woman on the radio discussing the topic of so-called comfort women who had been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese government during the war.
Maria Rosa began to shake uncontrollably. She heard the woman on the radio discuss something called the Task Force on Filipino Comfort Women. 'Don’t be ashamed,' the woman said. 'Being a sex slave is not your fault. It is the responsibility of the Japanese Imperial Army. Stand up and fight for your rights.'
'My heart was beating very fast,' Maria wrote later of that moment. 'I asked myself whether I should expose my ordeal. What if my children and relatives found me dirty and repulsive?'
She didn’t call in, but she listened to that radio station every day. A few weeks later, she heard a similar announcement. She began to weep. At that moment, her daughter Rosario walked in. Maria Rosa finally told her the truth.
Rosario helped her get in touch with the task force. Maria Rosa was interviewed on tape, Rosario at her side. It was extremely difficult, but also a relief. 'I felt like a heavy weight had been removed from my shoulders,' she wrote later, 'as if thorns had been pulled out of my grieving heart. I felt I had recovered my long-lost strength and self-esteem.'
Maria Rosa was the first Filipina comfort woman to break her silence..."
From "Maria Rosa Henson: Rape Survivor" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater
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