Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-rvxtl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-14T22:05:59.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Flawed Japan-ROK Attempt to Resolve the Controversy Over Wartime Sexual Slavery and the Case of Park Yuha

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

To many, the 2015 Japan-South Korea agreement to finally settle the Korean “comfort women” issue came as a surprise. For over two decades Japan's wartime military sexual slavery remained the single most contentious issue dividing Japan and South Korea, severely affecting the bilateral relations and even becoming a concern for the US, which saw the tension between two of its allies in the Asia Pacific as troublesome. The 2015 comfort women agreement has promised that, with Japan's one billion yen funding to assist the survivors together with a sincere apology, the “comfort women” issue will be “finally and irrevocably” resolved. While some media hailed this as a landmark resolution and an opening of a new, more positive era for Japan-Korea relations, it has also provoked a deep sense of dissatisfaction and anger among “comfort women” advocacy groups, feminists and the former Korean “comfort women” themselves. It seems clear that the state-state “agreement” (made without any consultation with the survivors) will not restore “dignity and honour” to the victims. After all, one of the origins of current antagonisms surrounding the “comfort women” issue is another state-state deal, the 1965 Japan-ROK Basic Relations Treaty, which failed to address the “comfort women” and closed the door on individual redress claims. The recent agreement is not the end of the “comfort women” issue – especially for the survivors.

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2016