Ms. Kim Bok-dong is one of the Korean women forced to work in Japanese military brothels who is still alive.
Ms. Kim Bok-dong, 90 years old, is one of 47 Korean women forced to work in Japanese military brothels who are still alive.
Scholars continue to debate the number of women forced to serve the physical needs of Japanese soldiers, but according to social activists, there may have been as many as 200,000 South Korean and North Korean women.
While their Asian neighbors await Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s speech at the commemoration of the end of the war 70 years ago, these women don’t have much time to wait.
Last week, South Korean President Park Geun-hye announced that the upcoming August 15 anniversary could be the last chance for Japanese leaders to resolve this issue.
`I didn’t think I had to wait that long. If I had known, I wouldn’t have spoken up. We won’t be truly liberated until the problem is resolved,` Reuters quoted Ms. Kim as saying.
When Kim was 14 years old, a Japanese policeman and soldier came to her house and asked her to work at a textile factory.
Instead of a few days, Kim was captured in military brothels in southern China, Indonesia and Singapore, separated for seven years.
In 1993, Mr. Yohei Kono, who later became Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, apologized for the country’s actions in the past.
Mrs. Gil Won-ok, a Korean, had to work in a Japanese military brothel since she was 13 years old.
Ms. Ren Lane from Shanxi province, China, spent her whole life hiding her past of being captured and raped by Japanese soldiers since she was 15 years old.
Liu Wanchang, Ms. Lane’s son, said the government had never contacted the family to find out his mother’s story, despite recent media coverage.
However, China recently began releasing documents detailing Japanese crimes against `comfort women`.
Ms. Gil Won-ok, who was taken from her home in Pyongyang city, North Korea, at the age of 13 and imprisoned for 5 years in Japanese military brothels in China, did not want to talk about it.
`An apology will help us peacefully close our eyes and say goodbye. But I think that’s unlikely,` Ms. Gil, currently living in the same house with Ms. Kim in Seoul, South Korea, shared.