Japan objects to South Korea mentioning wartime ‘comfort women’ at UN rights meeting
Japan formally complained on Monday after South Korea’s foreign minister raised the issue of wartime “comfort women” at the top UN rights body, while warning that it should not be allowed to harm bilateral relations at a critical time in East Asia.
“Comfort women” was Japan’s euphemism for Asian women – including Koreans, Chinese and Filipino – forced to work in its wartime brothels. Under a 2015 deal, Japan apologised to the women and provided a 1 billion yen (US$9.4 million) fund to help them, but South Korea has recently sought to revisit the issue.
The two US allies, who share a bitter history including Japanese colonisation, are key to international efforts to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Previous efforts to resolve the issue had clearly lacked a victim-centred approach
Kang Kyung-wha, foreign minister of South Korea, did not name Japan directly in her speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council, but called for a “victim-centred approach” to the issue of comfort women.
