Dutch NGO demands Japan's apology

Brigitte van Halder, right, a representative from the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts, participates in the foundation’s monthly protest in front of the Japanese Embassy in The Hague, the Netherlands, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Brigitte van Halder

By Kim Se-jeong

Forty-seven Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II are continuing to fight for an apology and financial compensation from Japan. But they are not alone.

Brigitte Van Halder, a representative of the Foundation of Japanese Honorary Debts, a Dutch NGO, is calling for justice on behalf of Dutch nationals who suffered under Japanese forces during the war.

“The victims want acknowledgement, an apology and compensation,” Van Halder said. “The Japanese government has a moral and social responsibility to rectify the wrongdoings of the Japanese Imperial Army.”

She is one of the guest speakers at the symposium “Thinking Women in the Era of War and Violence” which takes places today in Seoul. She will talk about her organization’s experiences in the 25 years since it was founded. The symposium is designed to mark the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Her foundation represents not only sex slaves but other men and women who were forced to work for Japan during the war. Almost 300,000 Dutch people are estimated to have been mobilized, with 400 used as sex slaves. The number of survivors today is estimated at 40,000 but it’s not known how many of the victims of sexual slavery victims are still alive.

Her foundation has helped individual victims file damage suits against Japan and publicize the many atrocities committed by the Imperial forces.

She faces similar challenges to those experienced by Korean victims. Japan says compensation was given through the Stikker-Yoshida agreement in 1956, and refuses to compensate individual victims. Under the agreement, the Japanese government paid $10 million in compensation to the Dutch government. But, Van Halder and the victims think the Japanese government still owes individual victims for their mental trauma.

Korea and Japan also signed an agreement in 1965, and Japan has refused to take individual claims citing this agreement.

Her foundation has staged a rally in front of the Japanese embassy in the Netherlands since 1992. It takes place every second Tuesday of the month at The Hague. In Korea, it’s a weekly event in front of the Japanese embassy.

Members of the foundation sent a petition to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe through a Japanese diplomat there. “Every month there is a polite meeting where we explain the background of our petition, but the ambassador repeats Japan’s position that it has already legally solved everything,” she said. The rally is mainly attended by the victims, and the crowd “gets smaller every month as the victims die or get too old to demonstrate.” Now, between 50 and 60 people show up on average, she said.

Van Halder’s family history is deeply related to her advocacy work. Her grandmother, mother and aunt were taken to camps by Japan from 1942 until the end of the war. They were forced to work in Bandung in West Java and Batavia, now Jakarta. All three survived the war and managed to get back to the Netherlands after the fighting was over. Her uncle, her mother’s brother who was taken to Singapore and Japan to work, did not make it back to the Netherlands, however.

She said the story of their plight should not be forgotten.

“Most of the Dutch victims are dead now or very old and I think that people from the next generation should speak up for them. That’s the reason I am involved with this foundation.”