Hundreds of South Korean people rallied in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Wednesday, protesting against the agreement between South Korea and Japan on the comfort women issue.
Japan promised to offer one billion yen (about 8.3 million U.S. dollars) from its government coffer to help South Korea set up an assistance fund for the victims of comfort women, a euphemism for women forcibly recruited to serve in Japan's military brothels during World War II. In return for those action and word, South Korea pledged a final and irreversible agreement on the war crime and promised no to criticize Japan in the international community any more.
Despite the inter-governmental agreement, the victims and civic groups called for a complete resolution on the issue with an unequivocal apology and legal reparations from Japan on Wednesday, at the "Wednesday rally" that has been staged every Wednesday for more than 20 years.
Kim Bok-dong, 90, is one of the comfort women victims. She has been fighting relentlessly for the Japanese government's apology.
More than 70 years ago, the then 15-year-old Kim Bok-dong was taken out of her country by Japanese Army with lies of job opportunities in Japanese factories. However, she suffered humiliations and tortures for eight years before she was able to come back home.
And by then her family thought she was dead long time ago.
"I couldn't get in touch with them during the eight years. They all thought I was dead long time ago. Who knew eight years later I came back alive," said Kim during an interview in December 2014.
Kim had kept her experience secret to herself after her return. "I couldn't tell people what happened to me. And if I could, who should I talk to? People all thought I worked in Japan," said Kim.
When she was 61 years old, she saw on TV that the South Korean government was registering the number of comfort women victims and since then she started revealing the Japanese Army's crime and fighting for the interests of the victims with others. But at first she was met with coldness and misunderstanding.
"I made public my stories. Newspapers, televisions and other media reported my experience, but after that I could no longer stay at my home town," said Kim.
She and others have been calling for compensation and apology from the Japanese government over the past decades, but the result is disappointing.
"We stand up to denounce the Japanese Army's atrocity and we didn't know it would take so long a time. We thought the problem would be solved immediately, but 20 more years have passed with the problem unsolved. My heart is very heavy," said Kim.
Kim never gives up. She hopes to see the Japanese government apologize sincerely and compensate them.
She said she would use the compensation to help more comfort women to live a better life.
"The Japanese government should immediately apologize as a legal remedy and restore our reputation. That is my biggest wish," said Kim.
Kim is currently living in a family-run nursing home in Seoul with another two comfort women victims, Kil Wo-nok and Lee Yoong-soo.
There are over 230 registered comfort women in South Korea and currently only 46 of them are still alive.
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