Ex-Korean Sex Slaves Hail US House Resolution

Former Korean sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II Tuesday welcomed the passage of a resolution by the U.S. House of Representatives calling on Japan to formally apologize to the victims and accept historical responsibility.

"The approval of the resolution gives hope for the restoration of honor and the realization of justice for 'comfort women' victims in the Asia Pacific region," the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan said in a statement.

The nonbinding House resolution is symbolic, but it demands that Japan "should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner" for coercion of young women into sexual slavery in military brothels in the 1930s and 40s.

Estimates vary, but hundreds of thousands of women, mostly from Korea, are believed to have been sexually enslaved by Japan, which colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.

"The Japanese government should officially apologize to the elderly victims and make legal compensations as well as teach young generations 'right history' and promise a peaceful future," the council said.

U.S. Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, the resolution's chief sponsor, said Lee Yong-soo, who testified before Congress in February on her rape and torture at the hands of Japanese soldiers, watched Monday's proceedings. "All she could do was weep and say thank you," Honda said. "It vindicated her past."

In 1993, Japan issued a carefully worded official apology, but it was never approved by its parliament. Japan has rejected compensation claims, saying they were settled by postwar treaties.

The Asian Women's Fund, created in 1995 by the Japanese government but run independently and financed by private donations, has been used as a way for the Japanese government to circumvent providing official compensation to the victims.

(Yonhap)