Korean sex slaves to have their story documented in English

By Lee Kyung-min

Korean sex slaves in WWII will have records of their own in English.

Professional translators and native English-speaking copy editors ㅡ four of them ㅡ formed a group dedicated to this work, and have been working since last December.

This move comes after decades-long, a series of justifications by Japanese ultra-right public figures’ mind-boggling comments ㅡ and the controversy and condemnation that entails.

Comments by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto such as “sex slaves were war time necessities” would be the most recent one.

To counter them point by point, Korea, with women who actually were sex slaves, should have the first-hand account written unadulterated by outside interests, the group said.

Out of 234 registered victims, they have translated the full-text testimony of six women, and summarized the biography of 30 women and what they had to go through.

The tone and the emotion of the victims as they recollect will be the primary concern for the work, they said.

Another concern is that they come up with a professional, neutral set of documentation of history unadulterated by politics.

There have been only voices of concerns, not the action, they added.

This effort is to concretely deal with the history as it happened, and to back the claim with hard facts rather than emotions, they said.

The work will be published online on the web page of The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan War & Women’s Human Rights Museum, and will be shared by universities.

It will be published in book as well.

Several American publishers are in talks with the group, they said.

“There are many references in Japanese, but not enough English ones,” said one official from the Museum.

“Through our work, we hope to shed light on the war crimes and sexual crimes worldwide,” said one translator.