Japan Sends 1 Billion Yen to the Foundation for Comfort Women
According to diplomatic sources, the Japanese government has sent 1 billion yen (US $9.7 million) on Wednesday to the foundation that was established by the Korean government to help Korean women who were compelled to sexual slavery during the Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945 in the country.
In December last year, Japan and South Korea were able to reach a landmark deal to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the matters concerning Japan's wartime sexual slavery, and the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation was founded in July this year in Seoul. Japan also promised to transmit 1 billion yen from its national budget for the Korean victims.
The Korea Times reported that the funds were transferred one week after the government of Japan proposed to provide 1 billion yen to the foundation in a recent Cabinet meeting.
The foundation aims to offer 100 million won in cash to each of the 46 living victims and 20 million won to the families of 199 victims who already passed away.
The foundation and the promised budget from Japan came 25 years after a former sex slave, the late Kim Hak Soon, first testified publicly in 1991.
On August 24, a meeting between South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan Fumio Kishida was held in Tokyo, and the two parties agreed to "faithfully" implement the deal.
The Foreign Ministry released a statement which says, "The two ministers reaffirmed that it is important to recover the dignity of the victims and heal their scars by faithfully carrying out what was agreed upon in the December deal, and also shared the view that hey should work closely together to that end."
However, some surviving victims and civic groups protested the implementation of the deal and called it "the enforcement of the impractical deal."
The survivors and protesters claim that the South Korean government failed to get Japan's acknowledgment of its legal responsibility and hastily agreed to the deal without asking or consulting them.
In a news conference held on Wednesday before the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, Kim Bok Dong, one of the surviving victims, said, "I am angry as the government is moving to resolve the issue after receiving money from Japan. I call on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to make a formal, sincere apology in front of the press and restore our honor."
