Ewha slams DP candidate for accusing school founder of forcing students to sleep with U.S. officers

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Ewha slams DP candidate for accusing school founder of forcing students to sleep with U.S. officers

Published: 02 Apr. 2024, 17:08

Main opposition Democratic Party general election candidate Kim Jun-hyeok [YONHAP]

Ewha Womans University said Tuesday that it will take legal action against a general election candidate from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) for making sexually insulting remarks about its students and alumni.

The nation's first and largest women's university responded after it became known that Kim Jun-hyeok, the DP candidate now running for parliament in the Suwon-D District of Gyeonggi Province, 30 kilometers south of Seoul, claimed Ewha students were forced to offer sexual favors to U.S. military officers for years after Korea's liberation from Japan's colonial rule in 1945.

Kim, a professor-turned-politician, said on a YouTube channel in August 2022 that Kim Hwal-lan, the first president of Ewha Womans University, played a big role in sending wartime "comfort women" to Japan and she also forced Ewha students to provide sexual favors to U.S. military officers during the U.S. military's rule of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from 1945 to 1948.

The university issued a statement urging Kim of the DP to resign from his election candidacy and vowed to take legal action against him for defaming the school and all its members.

The statement said candidate Kim's "unverified and speculative" remarks not only seriously damaged the reputation of the school, its students, professors and alumni, but are also based on a discriminatory and distorted view of all women.

Yonhap