‘Comfort women’ take case to court

A civic group said yesterday it will take the case of South Korean women who were sexually enslaved by Japan during World War II to the Constitutional Court because their government failed to take diplomatic action to demand that Japan take responsibility.
The Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan said it will file a petition with the Constitutional Court after holding a news conference tomorrow.
Japan called the women “comfort women.”
“The government has not properly taken any diplomatic measures to demand responsibility for the ‘comfort women’s’ issue, which violates the right of the elderly women to pursue happiness,” the group claimed.
The comfort women hold a protest every Wednesday in front of Japan’s Embassy in Seoul.
About 30 lawyers affiliated with Minbyun, the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, are thought to be taking part in the petition.
In August, the South Korean government held Japan legally responsible for forcing about 80,000 to 160,000 Korean women into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers, as well as other crimes, during Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
The prime minister’s office issued the position after studying more than 35,000 pages of declassified diplomatic documents on the agreement for normalizing diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan.
Kang Ju-hye, a bureau chief of the civic group, accused the government of failing to prepare for negotiations with Japan despite the designation of “legal responsibility” last year.
The same organization filed a petition with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea on behalf of 100 comfort women last month, calling for a diplomatic measure to protect the rights of the women.