'Comfort woman' victim sends letter to Moon, urging for CAT referral

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'Comfort woman' victim sends letter to Moon, urging for CAT referral

Lee Yong-soo, left, a ″comfort woman″ survivor, delivers to a Blue House official a handwritten letter for President Moon Jae-in urging for the Japanese military’s wartime sexual slavery issue to be referred to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) in front of the Blue House Tuesday. The letter is signed by five other elderly wartime sexual slavery victims. [NEWS1]

Lee Yong-soo, left, a ″comfort woman″ survivor, delivers to a Blue House official a handwritten letter for President Moon Jae-in urging for the Japanese military’s wartime sexual slavery issue to be referred to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) in front of the Blue House Tuesday. The letter is signed by five other elderly wartime sexual slavery victims. [NEWS1]

Lee Yong-soo, a "comfort woman" survivor, delivered a handwritten letter supported by five other elderly victims to President Moon Jae-in Tuesday, urging for the Japanese military's wartime sexual slavery issue to be referred to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT).  
 
Lee met with Yook Sung-cheol, a Blue House administrative official on civil society, in front of the Blue House fountain in central Seoul Tuesday morning and conveyed the letter in person. She did not separately meet with Moon as he was self-isolating that day after returning Saturday from a trip from the Middle East.
 
The Geneva-based CAT is a body of 10 independent human rights experts that monitors the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which went into effect in 1987. South Korea ratified the convention in 1995 and Japan in 1999.
 
Lee, a longtime rights activist, has called for Japan to be held accountable for its wartime atrocities and also advocated the referral of the issue of the Imperial Japanese Army's forced recruitment of young women and girls into sexual slavery before and during World War II to The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ).
 
Since last October, Lee has vocally urged the Korean government to resolve the issue through the CAT after facing difficulties referring it to the ICJ, which requires consent from both the Korean and Japanese governments. In the past several months, she met with First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum and Song Doo-hwan, chief of the National Human Rights Commission, to encourage a CAT referral.
 
She wrote in the latest letter to Moon, "I waited for something to be done, but I couldn't wait any longer."
 
"I am in tears as I write this letter," she continued. "I believe in the president because he is someone who knows that people come first."
 
Lee personally sought the other victims who live across the country to explain to them about the purpose of referring the issue to the CAT and gain their support, according to Shin Hee-seok, her legal adviser who is also a member of a committee to refer the comfort women issue to the ICJ. The signatories were 94-year-old Kang Il-chul, 97-year-old Park Ok-sun, 94-year-old Lee Ok-sun, 92-year-old Lee Ok-seon and 94-year-old Park Pil-geun. Some of the victims live at the House of Sharing in Gwangju, Gyeonggi, while Park lives in Pohang, North Gyeongsang.
 
There are only 13 surviving registered comfort women victims in Korea.
 
"The government has expressed concern that a CAT referral is Lee Yong-soo's individual opinion," Shin told the JoongAng Ilbo Tuesday. "Now, it is possible to say that it is a proposal that many of the 13 Korean survivors agree to."
 
Lee and legal experts believe that if the CAT recognizes that the comfort women victims were subject to torture, they will finally be able to undergo a mediation procedure even without the consent of the Japanese government.
 
Lee told reporters in front of the Blue House, "I will go to the CAT for the sake of our young people in Korea and to solve the comfort women issue."
 
She went onto request the president to read the letter signed by the six wartime sexual slavery survivors, asking, "Please resolve this issue."
 
However, the Korean government has maintained that the issue of a CAT is "under review."
 
Choi Young-sam, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a briefing Tuesday on the issue, "We will carefully review it, referring to various opinions."
 
Such a review includes its feasibility under international law, the opinions of the surviving victims and, to some extent, bilateral relations with Seoul which have deteriorated over matters related to history issues stemming from Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea.
 
Seoul and Tokyo under previous administrations attempted to resolve the wartime slavery issue in a deal signed on Dec. 26, 2015, which included an apology by the Japanese government and a 1-billion-yen ($9 million) fund for the victims.
 
Some civic organizations and survivors felt blindsided by the deal and demanded the Japanese government take clearer legal responsibility. The Moon administration said it would not scrap the 2015 bilateral deal, despite it being "flawed," taking into consideration bilateral relations with Tokyo, but has also underscored that the agreement is not a true resolution of the issue.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]
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