Sex slavery victims take Japan to US court

Sex slavery victims Kim Bok-dong, left, and Gil Won-ok hold a rally with activists in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on April 8.
/ Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Ahn Shin-kwon

By Kim Hyo-jin

Korean women forced into sexual slavery during World War II have taken the Japanese government to a U.S. court to demand reparation for wartime atrocities.

Yoo Hee-nam, 87, and another victim who wishes to remain anonymous filed a $20 million civil suit against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in California District Court on July 13.

The victims are taking matters into their own hands because the Korean and Japanese governments are not expected to offer a practical solution over the issue, comfort women's shelter "House of Sharing" director Ahn Shin-kwon told The Korea Times.

"We don't see hope from both countries," he said. "Based on a series of Abe's revisionist moves, he is highly unlikely to apologize in his August speech.

"On Korea's part, no meaningful progress has been made even after President Park Geun-hye said in June that negotiations were in the final stages."

A student pins a carnation on Yoo Hee-nam, 89, at the House of Sharing in Gyeonggi Province on May 8. / Yonhap

The civic activist, 55, who is leading the suit, said comfort women were no longer relying on diplomacy to achieve their aims.

"The victims are running out of time," he said. "We needed an effective channel to have an official apology and national reparation," he said.

Lodging a civil suit in the U.S. comes after legal attempts in Korea and Japan failed.

In 2013, Ahn's shelter filed a civil suit against the Japanese government in a Korean court, but to no avail. Japan did not appear for the first conciliation hearing, saying Korea's jurisdiction did not apply to Japan.

The Constitutional Court decided in 2011 that it was unconstitutional for the government to make no tangible effort to settle disputes with Japan over Tokyo's refusal to compensate former comfort women.

Following the ruling, Seoul officially asked the Japanese government to start negotiating, but Tokyo made no response.

Earlier in 1992, 10 comfort women took the issue to a Japanese court.

They lodged a $6.66 million lawsuit against the Japanese government with the Shimonoseki branch of the Yamaguchi District Court. Six years later, the court ruled that compensation should be awarded to the victims, but a higher court overturned the ruling.

Ahn said the Japanese government continued to argue that victims' claims were invalid based on the 1965 Korea-Japan Claims Agreement.

"I have met some Japanese foreign ministry officials unofficially to discuss reparations for the last few years," he said. "Their answer was always the same ― it is not worth mentioning as the matter came to a close in 1965."

When relations between Korea and Japan were normalized in 1965, the countries agreed to $800 million reparations to settle compensation issues surrounding war and colonization.

Supporters of comfort women believe the individuals' claims are still valid, regardless of the government-level agreement.

It is not the first time the shelter has taken Japan to a U.S. court. The shelter filed a lawsuit with the Washington Federal Court in 2000, but the court said the case was beyond its jurisdiction.

Ahn believes there is a strong chance the women will win the latest case.

"We included 10 U.S.-based Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi as defendants," he said. "They could hardly avoid appearing at the court."

The plaintiffs are accusing the Japanese firms with aiding and abetting by providing financial and physical support to the Japanese government's wartime sexual slavery.

Other defendants include Japanese Emperor Hirohito, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper ― which once labeled victims of sexual slavery as "prostitutes" ― and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Kim Hyung-jin, a California-based attorney representing the women, said the odds were in the victims' favor.

"Many precedents regarding wartime sexual crimes have been made in the past decade, including the Rwanda and Yugoslavia genocide," he said.

"And the suit is against not only past crimes but ongoing ones like defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress caused by the defendants' wrongdoings."

Ahn stressed that Japanese governmental reparations were critical because they would be equivalent to an acknowledgment of the sexual enslavement of Korean women.

"An official apology is not enough because their stance can change with a change of administration."

The Abe administration's revisionist statements contradict Kono's and Murayama's earlier statements, the activist said.

The victims want an acknowledgement of the sexual slavery through a formal legal procedure, he also said.

"It has nothing to do with money," he added, quoting a former comfort woman who said, "I'm just afraid of being stigmatized as a prostitute, even after death."

All victims are in their 80s or over. Three died last month, leaving only about 50 of 238 reported victims still alive.

"I'm just waiting to die," said Yoo, 87, one of the plaintiffs and a former comfort woman. "The crimes committed against me have been left unsolved for my entire life."

She said that even though there was little hope, she had to muster the courage for action one last time before she died.

"Emotionally, it was unbearable to hear Abe's remarks," she said.

Action should be taken to hold Abe accountable for his attempts to "whitewash" history, she added.