Foundation under probe over sex slave deal

By Kim Bo-eun

Gender Equality Minister Chung Hyun-back

Any moves over the controversial 2015 sex slave deal reached between Korea and Japan will be decided after a team completes its investigation into the deal, Minister of Gender Equality and Family Chung Hyun-back said Thursday.

The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation was launched in July 2016 to hand out part of the 1 billion yen in funds Tokyo provided in the deal, to surviving victims and bereaved family members.

“The team has launched an inspection into the foundation,” Chung said in a press conference in Seoul. “We will be able to decide what to do next after the inspection is concluded.”

The foundation has been under attack for carrying the disputed deal, in which victims and civic organizations claim Japan did not acknowledge its legal responsibility for luring Korean women to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese military during wartime. They state the 1 billion yen fund is therefore a mere donation, rather than legal compensation.

Kim Tae-hyeon, who headed the foundation, resigned Thursday due to mounting pressure. Her resignation had raised speculations the foundation may be scrapped and the deal renegotiated.

The foundation, however, said, “We will continue to do our best in carrying out support for sex slave victims,” in a press release the same day.

Minister Chung also said, “Matters of the foundation will be decided in cooperation with the foreign ministry after the inspection is completed.”

The team, comprised of seven members including ministry officials in charge of auditing and accounting, will look into the establishment of the foundation, its management and the status quo of payments that have been made to victims, to check for any problems in deciding which of the victims would be paid.

Nine of the surviving victims have refused to accept the money, and there were suspicions that the foundation had provided funds to certain victims without their explicit consent.

At the time the sex slave deal was made in December 2015, there were 47 surviving victims. According to data from the foundation, 34 of them have been paid and two cases are being reviewed.

Currently, there are 37 surviving victims, after another passed away on Sunday.

The funds remaining after the victims receive compensation are set to be used for commemorative purposes, but Chung said she could not specify as of now exactly what that entails.

Chung said the inspection is expected to be concluded by the end of August.