Gov't to mark 30th anniversary of 1st public testimony by comfort woman
A statue symbolizing "comfort women" installed in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul / Korea Times file
The government said Friday it will hold an online ceremony this weekend to mark 30 years since the first public testimony by a Korean victim of Japanese wartime sexual slavery.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said the ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, exactly 30 years after Kim Hak-soon publicly testified about her ordeals as a victim of Japan's organized military brothel program during World War II.
The government designated Aug. 14, the day Kim testified, a national memorial day in 2017.
During the ceremony, President Moon Jae-in plans to deliver a video message honoring the victims and pledging the government's continued efforts to address their grievances.
The issue of the "comfort women," a Japanese euphemism for the sex slaves, has been a constant source of tension between the two countries as South Koreans demand a sincere apology and compensation from Tokyo.
The Japanese government, which ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony from 1910-45, claims all matters of apology and compensation were settled under past agreements.
"Despite our ceaseless efforts over the past 30 years to resolve the issue of the Japanese military's comfort women and stop the recurrence of violations of women's human rights, such as wartime sexual violence, we have recently seen the comfort women's history being repeatedly denied and distorted at home and abroad," Gender Equality Minister Chung Young-ai said in a pre-released commemorative address.
"We will spare no assistance for research and activities that aim to determine the historical truth and inform the world so that such a history will never repeat itself," she said.
This year's ceremony has been prerecorded due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will be broadcast on the YouTube channels of the ministry and state broadcaster KTV.
The ceremony will show videos of the activism and solidarity movement that have stood behind the comfort women over the last 30 years and include commemorative performances.
The ministry said it will hold other commemorative events before and after the memorial day.
On Friday, it will unveil around 150 documents obtained from the South Korean government, the Japanese military and the United Nations that prove Tokyo's sexual enslavement of women during the war. The documents will be released simultaneously in South Korea and the United States.
The Research Institute on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery will open its English website "Kyeol" at www.kyeol.kr/en, offering English translations of various writings related to the issue of comfort women.
Historians say up to 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were forced into sexual servitude in front-line Japanese brothels during the war. (Yonhap)