Bo-eun leads the digital content team. She has covered foreign affairs, North Korea, tech, economy and gender issues at The Korea Times. She did a short stint at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she obtained a new perspective on news production and life. Small sources of joy for her are lounging in the sun, having a good latte and swimming.
Foreign minister pays respects to deceased Japan sex slavery victim
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha heads to the memorial altar of former sex slave Kim Bok-dong at Yonsei University Severance Hospital in western Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap
By Kim Bo-eun
By Kim Bo-eun
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha visited the memorial altar of former sex slave Kim Bok-dong, Wednesday, one day after President Moon Jae-in went there to pay his respects.
“Remain long in our hearts and history,” she wrote in a commemorative note, at Yonsei University Severance Hospital in western Seoul.
Kim died of cancer at the age of 93, Monday. She played a leading role in raising awareness of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of women for its military during its 1910-45 occupation of Korea. She was a symbolic figure in a diplomatic row between Seoul and Tokyo over the latter's refusal to acknowledge its sex slavery.
Kang did not respond to reporters' questions about what the South Korean government will do with the 1 billion won fund it has drawn up.
Under a deal signed in December 2015, Japan provided South Korea with 10 billion yen (approximately 1 billion won) in funds for victims. However, the deal drew strong opposition for excluding the voices of victims.
Accordingly, the Moon administration created its own 1 billion won fund last year, stating it would decide what to do with the money after hearing from victims on the matter.
A day earlier, Kang visited the memorial altar of another victim who also passed away Monday.
President Moon posted on Facebook: “Kim did not merely remain a victim, but called for an apology and legal compensation for Japan's atrocities and played a leading role in setting history right."
“I will do what I can for the 23surviving victims of sex slavery.”