5-yr term demanded for lawmaker over alleged embezzlement of donations for sex slavery victims

Independent Rep. Youn Mee-hyang heads to a court hearing at the Seoul Western District Court in Seoul, Jan. 6. Yonhap

Prosecutors on Friday demanded a five-year prison term for independent Rep. Youn Mee-hyang on charges of embezzling funds donated to help support women who were forced into wartime sex slavery by imperial Japan.

Youn was accused of collecting hundreds of millions of won in donations to her private bank accounts and spent some of them for personal use, including living expenses, while heading a major civic group for wartime sexual slavery victims, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery.

Youn led the group between 2005 and 2020 before winning a parliamentary seat on the Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) ticket in 2020. The DPK expelled Youn in 2021, and she has since been an independent lawmaker.

Prosecutors have pressed charges of violating the subsidy management act and the donation collection act as well as embezzlement. (Yonhap)