A South Korean court has ordered Japan to compensate women forced to work in Japanese military brothels during World War II, an important decision that ignited tensions between US allies just before Joe Biden took office.
The Seoul District Court ruled on Friday what is believed to be the first decision by Japan to offset what is euphemistically known as “comfort women,” in a case brought on behalf of 12 women. He ordered the Japanese government to pay 100 million won ($ 91,000) each to the surviving women and family members of those who died.
“The applicants appear to have suffered extreme mental and physical pain,” the court said in its ruling. The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government in 2013, demanding 100 million won ($ 92,500) each for damages.
The court said Japan had refused to accept documents related to the issue and rejected claims that Tokyo could invoke the state’s immunity at trial, saying the war trafficking case was “against humanitarianism.”
Japanese government spokesman Katsunobu Kato told reporters in Tokyo that the ruling could not be accepted and urged the South Korean government to remedy what he called a violation of international law.
“According to the principle of sovereign immunity, the Japanese government cannot be subject to the orders of a South Korean court. The case must be rejected, “said Kato. “It is extremely unfortunate that this type of verdict has been reached,” Kato said.
In 2015, Japan and South Korea announced a “final and irreversible” agreement that came with personal apologies for the wives of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as well as about $ 9.3 million for a compensation fund.
Some of the women protested, arguing that the agreement was reached without consultation and violated their constitutional rights. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who took office in 2017, effectively closed the fund, widening the gap between the two key US military allies to check China’s growing global influence and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
In September, Moon was hit when prosecutors charged him with embezzlement against a member of parliament from his ruling party, Yoon Mee-hyang, claiming that he illegally redirected government donations and grants to a support group for comfort women when he led her.
Yoon denied the allegations when it came to light last year, when a survivor of the wartime trafficking accused the group of raising funds to get rich and doing little to help women who were forced to serve sexually.
Tensions have risen even further between neighbors following a series of South Korean court rulings in late 2018 calling on Japan to pay compensation to Koreans recruited to work at Japanese factories and mines during the country’s 1910-1945 colonial rule in the Korean Peninsula. .
The US was forced to intervene when South Korea threatened in 2019 to withdraw from a joint information-sharing agreement, with Moon rethinking at the last minute after facing pressure from Washington.
Japan says all claims have been “fully and finally resolved” under a 1965 agreement that accompanied the treaty establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries. By contrast, the Moon administration considers that the individual suffering of many victims has not been covered by the treaty.
Japan has paid the equivalent of $ 300 million – $ 2.5 billion in today’s money – and given $ 200 million in low-interest loans. South Korea, which was then struggling, invested money in industries that ultimately helped turn it into an economic powerhouse.
Historians say that between 50,000 and 200,000 women – many of them Koreans – have been forced into Japanese military brothels.
“With the assistance of Gareth Allan.”
(Updates with the rejection of the process by Japan from the fifth paragraph)