Nearly eight decades after the end of World War II, a South Korean court on November 23, 2023, ordered Japan to compensate 16 women who were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels. This marks a historic victory for these women in their long-standing struggle for the acknowledgment of these wartime crimes.
The issue of “comfort women,” a euphemism for sexual slavery during the Japanese occupation, has been a source of prolonged dispute between South Korea and Japan. Victims and their families have demanded an apology and reparations from the Japanese government. After decades of legal proceedings, South Korea and Japan appeared to have reached a compromise in 2015. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologized and pledged to donate $8 million to a specific fund.
However, many Koreans condemned the lack of sincerity in the apologies, and the Japanese government subsequently backtracked. As a result, it was the victims who continued the fight by filing lawsuits in South Korean courts.
The recent decision by the Seoul High Court overturns a lower court’s dismissal of the case two years prior. While a lower court had invoked Japan’s “sovereign immunity” to reject the victims’ claims, citing potential diplomatic tensions, the Seoul High Court ruled on Thursday that it was “reasonable to assert that sovereign immunity should not be respected… in the case of illegal conduct.”
The court ordered payment of approximately 200 million won (about 141,000 euros) to each plaintiff, some of whom have already passed away and are represented by their families. This ruling is the second in favor of “comfort women,” but Japan has reiterated that it is not obligated to respect the verdict.
Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly Koreans but also from other Asian countries, including China, were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II. This issue has long strained bilateral relations between Seoul and Tokyo, which colonized the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.