Korea wants UN to recognize Japan's WWII sex slavery

By Kim Se-jeong

Gender Equality Minister Cho Yoon-sun disclosed a plan Wednesday to try and get Japan’s wartime sexual slavery of women from Korea and other countries listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

“We are identifying items related to sexual slavery by Japan against Korea and neighboring countries in order to nominate them for assessment,” Cho said in New York, where she attended a meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women.

She added that the ministry will submit them next year. A decision is expected by 2017.

Last week, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told a U.N. meeting that Japan had failed to recognize its wrongdoing in forcing women from countries it occupied into military brothels during World War II.

A ministry official said 40,000 items have been located and identified both in Korea and Japan so far.

“Items are diverse, ranging from records of testimonies and clothes to documentation. They’re all valuable,” said Pak Han-yong, a research professor at Korea University’s Center for Korean History. Pak leads the ongoing identification effort, and his team will fly to the Southeastern Asian countries to amass further data.

He cited a recent find: a diary written between 1943 and 1944 by a Japanese man managing the euphemistically called “comfort women” at a station in Myanmar.

Pak said registration by UNESCO will contribute to making Japan think twice.

“It would help increase global awareness that the issue is grave and deserves international attention,” he said. “Given the reality that the Japanese government denies its involvement, getting on the UNESCO register will have an impact on Tokyo.”

The push to gain the recognition for sexual slavery coincides with Japan’s push to register letters of its suicide pilots on the same list.

“I view that as an intricate trick to distort and conceal its crimes,” Pak said.

During her stay in New York, Cho will give a lecture at Colombia University, and visit a memorial honoring the victims of sexual slavery and the Museum of Jewish Heritage.