S Korea allows new ‘comfort women’ statue

Statue symbolises victims of Japanese sexual slavery during the Second World War.

South Korean activists stage a protest around a statue of a teenage girl symbolising former ‘comfort women’ forced into sexual slavery by Japan during the Second World War, which they tried to set up outside the Japanese consulate in Busan. Yonhap / AFPShow less

SEOUL // The southern South Korean port of Busan said on Friday it would permit activists to erect a statue symbolising victims of Japanese wartime sexual slavery.

The municipal authorities had removed the “comfort woman” statue, which stands outside the Japanese consulate in Busan but changed their minds after Japan’s hawkish defence minister offered prayers at a controversial war shrine in Tokyo.

Tomomi Inada’s visit on Thursday to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honours millions of mostly Japanese war dead but also includes senior military and political figures convicted of war crimes, drew condemnation from China and South Korea.

Activists had first placed their statue outside the consulate on Wednesday, marking their opposition to a South Korea-Japan agreement reached a year ago to finally resolve the issue of comfort women — the name given to South Korean female prisoners who were used as sexual slaves for the Japanese army during the Second World War. .

Under the accord, which both countries described as “final and irreversible,” Japan offered an apology and a one-billion yen ($8.3 million) payment to surviving Korean women.

Critics said the deal did not go far enough in holding Japan responsible for its wartime abuses.

The statue — a copy of one that sits across the road from the Japanese embassy in Seoul — was swiftly removed from outside the Busan consulate by the authorities.

But after Ms Inada’s visit stoked an outpouring of public anger, they said it would be returned to the activists.

“We won’t stop the civic group from setting up the statue there if they wish to do so,” said city official Park Sam-seok.

The statue in Seoul, a bronze of a young, seated woman with a small bird on her shoulder, has proved an extremely potent and popular symbol.

Japan said it should have been removed after the comfort women accord was signed, but Seoul argued it had only agreed to look into the possibility of moving it.

For the past year, activists have maintained a 24-hour vigil to prevent the statue being taken away.

More than two dozen similar monuments have been erected around South Korea, and another dozen or so abroad in the United States, Canada and elsewhere.

* Agence France-Presse