Is the Compensation Japan Paid to Korea Enough to Resolve the Comfort Women Issue?

It was in 2015 when Japan officially issued an apology to South Korea for what their soldiers did to so-called “comfort women” during the World War II. According to statistics, more than 80,000 women from Korea and other parts of Asia had been taken by the Japanese army and forced to provide sexual services to soldiers.

It took several decades for comfort women testimonies to even appear in public and almost 70 years for Japan to officially apologize. The two countries also agreed an $8.3 million settlement, but it remains a question whether that will be enough in the eyes of the Korean people.

At the time, the deal was signed between two foreign ministers, Yun Byung-se and his Japanese colleague Fumio Kishida. It was further supported by Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, who apologized to the president of South Korea Park Geun-hye over the phone. It was believed that this agreement could benefit to bilateral relations of the two countries. The Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony from 1910 to the end of World War II,and ever since then, the relations are strained.The issue of South Korean comfort women has brought additional problems for both sides when it comes to developing a stable relationship.

The compensation Japan paid should make lives easier for the surviving victims of this shameful occurrence. However, it is believed that only about a couple of dozen women who worked as comfort girls are still alive. The question that many will ask is why an agreement wasn’t made sooner. It is because Japan had claimed the $800 million payment in forms of loans and grants made in 1965 was enough to resolve the issue. However, the authorities and the people of South Korea didn’t agree with that.

Kishida pinpointed that the new settlement has the goal of restoring the dignity of the victims. However, the victims themselves do not believe the deal has a lot to do with them.

“We never said we were looking for money, said Lee Yong-soo (88).

According to what the victimized women revealed to the press, they want a direct formal apology from the Japanese and direct compensation. Another important issue to consider is the reaction of the people of South Korea to the agreement. The statue dedicated to women who were forced to be sex workers during the war is still placed outside the Embassy of Japan in Seoul and doesn’t look like it will be removed.

www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/17/bringing-poetry-to-the-cruel-history-of-comfort-women/

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