Activists demand Japan gov't compensate "comfort women" victims

Activists fighting for rights of"comfort women"rallied Wednesday around Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's official residence demanding that the government properly handle the historical issue, rather than using money to made a deal over the country's wartime wrongdoing.

About 100 activists participated in Wednesday's protest, asking Japanese and South Korean governments to retract their newly reached agreement on the issue, saying the governments should carefully listen to the victims, and rejecting to remove the statue representing Korean"comfort women"victims located in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

The protesters also required the Japanese government to take legal liability over the issue and to compensate the victims of"comfort women,"a Japanese euphemism for over 200,000 women who were forcibly recruited by the then Japanese Imperial Army as sex slaves in military brothels.

According to the new Tokyo-Seoul agreement regarding the issue, Japan will finance a new fund of about 1 billion yen (about 8.3 million U.S. dollars) to support the victims and, in return, both sides should not criticize and accuse each other on the issue at international occasions and the statue should be removed from its location.

The Japanese government said the deal was"final and irreversible,"but civil groups in South Korea apparently disappointed over the agreement, accusing the agreement did not specify the culprit of the wartime crime.

Protesters in Wednesday's rally also said that although the prime minister mentioned apology and the government's responsibility when the two countries reached the deal, it was unacceptable that the agreement failed to detail the wartime atrocity's illegality.

Some of the activists also asked the Japanese government to compensate"comfort women"victims from other countries that suffered Japan's wartime aggression.

Since Jan. 8, 1992, South Korean"comfort women" victims firstly launched"Wednesday gathering"urging the historical issue to get resolved and the rallies were held 1,212 times since then. Similar rallies were also held on Wednesday in other places worldwide demanding the"comfort women"issue be properly settled. Enditem