'Comfort woman' survivor gets transition team cold shoulder

Diplomacy

Published: 21 Apr. 2022, 18:03

'Comfort woman' survivor gets transition team cold shoulder

Lee Yong-soo, a ″comfort woman″ survivor, visits the presidential transition team office in Tongui-dong, central Seoul, Thursday to urge referring the Japanese military’s wartime sexual slavery issue to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) and to ask to join President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s delegation to Tokyo next week. [YONHAP]

Lee Yong-soo, a "comfort woman" survivor, visited President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's transition team office Thursday to recommend a resolution to the Japanese military's wartime sexual slavery issue by referring it to a United Nations committee on torture.

She also asked to accompany Yoon's policy consultation delegation to Japan next week but did not get to speak with any top transition team official.

People Power Party (PPP) Rep. Chung Jin-suk, a National Assembly deputy speaker, will lead a seven-member delegation to Tokyo for a five-day trip from Sunday to meet with Japanese government officials, lawmakers, businesspeople, journalists and academics. They are expected to hold policy consultations on issues including North Korea and bilateral relations.

Lee initially planned to meet with Chung Thursday, but the encounter did not take place because of scheduling conflicts. She previously requested a meeting with the transition committee but said she did not receive a response.

Instead, Lee visited the transition team office in Tongui-dong, central Seoul, around noon hoping to deliver documents conveying her views. A transition team official picked up the materials from Lee at the front door.

Lee, a longtime rights activist, has called for Japan to be held accountable for its wartime atrocities and advocates a 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) or the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT).

Lee has faced difficulties referring the comfort women issue to the ICJ, which requires consent from both the Korean and Japanese governments, and has encouraged a CAT referral.

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.

After her visit to the transition team office, Lee vented her frustrations to reporters Thursday and asked, "Am I a sinner?" She expressed her disgruntlement over being turned away without a business card from the transition team.

Lee stressed that the wartime sexual slavery issue should be referred to the CAT and also expressed a desire to visit Japan in person to convey her viewpoint.

"If we have pardoned [former President] Park Geun-hye, who put a nail into our hearts with the hasty agreement with Japan in 2015, wouldn't it be appropriate to resolve the comfort women issue as well?"

Lee also delivered to Yoon's transition team Thursday a recent public opinion poll that showed a majority of people surveyed would like to see the wartime sexual slavery issue properly resolved.

According to the survey of 1,000 people conducted by pollster Embrain between April 11 and 14, 83.2 percent of respondents said that the problem will grow without a fundamental solution and were in favor of a victim-centered resolution.

The poll also found 68.4 percent supported scrapping and renegotiating the Dec. 28, 2015 comfort women deal, while 20.1 percent said that the agreement between two countries should be recognized and respected.

And 78.5 percent supported referring the comfort women issue to a UN body.

Seoul and Tokyo under the Park Geun-hye and Shinzo Abe administrations attempted to resolve the wartime slavery issue in a deal signed on Dec. 28, 2015, which included an apology by the Japanese government and a 1-billion-yen ($7.8 million) fund for the victims. The agreement provoked an immediate backlash from some survivors and civic groups, who claimed Japan should take clearer legal responsibility. The Moon Jae-in administration said it would not scrap the 2015 bilateral deal, despite it being "flawed," but has also underscored that the agreement was not a true resolution of the issue.

Shin Yong-hyeon, a spokesperson for the presidential transition committee, said Thursday, that Lee's proposal "will be discussed in the foreign affairs and security subcommittee," but said that a meeting had not been scheduled in advance.

Some Democratic Party lawmakers have called for the exclusion of Lee Sang-deok, a former Korean ambassador to Singapore, from Yoon's delegation to Japan. Lee previously served as a director general for Northeast Asian affairs at Seoul's Foreign Ministry and led the Korean side in working-level negotiations for the 2015 deal.

Last September, Yoon, then a PPP presidential candidate, visited Lee in her hometown of Daegu, and promised he would bring a proper apology from Japan and alleviate the victims' pain if he were elected. Yoon however has also advocated improving bilateral ties with Japan, calling for "future-oriented" relations.

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