By Park Si-soo
In another embarrassment for Japan, the U.N. Committee against Torture has called on Japan and South Korea to revise their controversial ‘comfort women' deal for ending the dispute over women forced into Japanese military brothels before and during World War II.
The agreement should be modified to "ensure that the surviving victims of sexual slavery during World War II are provided with redress, including the right to compensation and rehabilitation and the right to truth, reparation and assurances of non-repetition," the committee said in a report.
The report came two days after South Korea's new President Moon Jae-in hinted at scrapping the controversial deal in his first phone call with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe.
The deal was reached in December 2015 to resolve the comfort women dispute "finally and irreversibly." In line with the terms of the deal, Tokyo disbursed 1 billion yen ($8.76 million) to a South Korean fund last year to help former comfort women and their families. Many South Koreans, including most of the victims, have rejected the agreement.
"President Moon noted the reality was that most of his people could not accept the agreement over the sexual slavery issue," Moon's chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan said shortly after the phone conversation.
The U.N. committee's recommendation could prompt the South Korean government to demand that the agreement be renegotiated, but the recommendation is not legally binding and Japan has no obligation to comply.
The Committee against Torture was established in 1988 in line with the 1984 U.N. Convention against Torture, which bans police and government organizations of states that are party to the convention from acts or torture and other inhuman treatment. Japan became party to the pact in 1999, according to Kyodo News Agency.
The committee regularly evaluates member countries' compliance and issues recommendations if problems are found.
In May 2013, the U.N. human rights panel urged the Japanese government to "refute attempts to deny the facts by the government authorities and public figures and to re-traumatize the victims through such denials."
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