Various incidents have caused an uproar in society recently. Especially, the “sexual slavery agreement” emerged as a major issue. This problem is extremely sensitive for many Koreans. The agreement about the sexual slavery was completed in December of last year. That news was devastating to many people.

So what is the “sexual slavery” issue and why were people upset?

First, “sexual slavery”, is a term that describes sex slaves used by the Japanese military during World War II. Japan provided sexual comfort soldiers during the long period of war. At first, it consisted of support women in Japan. But that was judged to have good effect. At the time Korean was under the rule of colonial Japan. Japan lied to hire nurses, civil employees and even took women by force. Most of the women ended up in Japanese military brothels and were used as sex slaves.

The women had to be dragged, and used as sex slaves for life. They were forced to have sex with more than 30 soldiers a day. They were locked up and ordered to perform sex acts and didn’t even received a salary. If they became pregnant or acquired a sexually transmitted disease, they were brutally killed or expelled. They didn’t received even a minimum of dignity as a human being.

A past interview with former sexual slavery Kim bok-dong reveals how terrible life was. She was 14 years old, when the Japanese came to her village in Korea. She had no choice but to leave her home, because she had to support her family. But instead of going to a factory, she arrived in a Japanese military brothel. She said, “Our job was to revitalize the soldiers” and she described soldiers lined up outside the brothel. That lining up at noon. She said it was terrible, violent and excruciating. And when finished for the day, she didn’t get up and couldn’t use her lower body.

She said “There are no words to describe her suffering.” And even now she can’t live without medicine.

That interview showed us how terrible that experience was and how inhumanely the sexual slavery were treated.

Nevertheless, now the government is going to settle the “sexual slavery” issue for 10 billion yen. Even the Japanese government said, “They will give 1 billion yen to fund help for those who suffered.” As it was, they gave to a fund to help, but not individual damages.

Sexual slavery doesn’t want to receive that money. They want a ‘genuine apology’. But Japan requires agreement without a genuine apology and just gave money. The Japanese even demanded the removal of a statue symbolizing sexual slavery that sits outside the Japanese consulate in Seoul, Japan also does not want the sexual slavery issue recorded in the UNESCO World heritage records.

Is this a genuine apology?

The sexual slavery agreement is not a simple problem between the governments Korea and Japan. They should know about the suffering of the sexual slavery and the nation behind the problem.

L.L.F reporter Kim eun-young

source : www.hermuseum.go.kr

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