A South Korean court ordered Japan to compensate women who had to work in Japan’s military brothels during World War II, a landmark decision that sparked tensions between US allies just before Joe Biden took office.
The Seoul court is believed to have made the first decision on Friday ordering Japan to compensate what is euphemistically known as “comfort women” in a case brought on behalf of 12 of the woman. It ordered the Japanese government to pay 100 million won ($ 91,000) each to the surviving wives and relatives of those who died.
“The prosecutors appear to have suffered extreme mental and physical pain,” the court said in its decision. The plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government in 2013, claiming each won 100 million ($ 92,500) in compensation.
The court said Japan has refused to accept documents related to the case and that it rejected claims that Tokyo can invoke state immunity from the lawsuit because the war-dealing case is “against humanitarianism.”
The highest spokesman for the Japanese government, Katsunobu Kato, told reporters in Tokyo that the ruling cannot be accepted and strongly urged the South Korean government to do something about what he called a violation of international law.
“Under the principle of sovereign immunity, the Japanese government cannot be subject to orders from a South Korean court. The case should be dismissed, ”Kato said. “It is extremely regrettable that this kind of verdict has nevertheless been reached,” said Kato.
In 2015, Japan and South Korea announced a “final and irreversible” agreement that came with a personal apology to former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s wives, as well as approximately $ 9.3 million for a compensation fund.
Some women protested, arguing that the deal had come about 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 U.S. military allies, which is crucial to China’s growing global influence and North’s atomic ambitions. Curb Korea.
In September, Moon was hit when prosecutors sued embezzlement against a lawmaker in his ruling party, Yoon Mee-hyang, who claims she illegally diverted donations and government grants to a comfort women support group when she led it.
Yoon has denied allegations in the case that came to light last year when a war trade survivor accused the group of raising money to enrich itself and doing little to help women forced into sexual servitude.
Tensions between neighbors further escalated after a series of South Korean court rulings from late 2018 demanding that Japan pay compensation to Koreans conscripted to work in Japanese factories and mines during the colonial rule of 1910-1945 over the country. Korean Peninsula.
The US was forced to step in when South Korea threatened to withdraw from a joint intelligence-sharing agreement in 2019, with Moon pulling out at the last minute after coming under pressure from Washington.
Japan says all claims were “fully and definitively settled” under a 1965 agreement, which was accompanied by the treaty establishing diplomatic ties between the two countries. In contrast, Moon’s government believes that the individual suffering of many victims was not covered by the convention.
Japan paid the equivalent of $ 300 million – $ 2.5 billion in current money – and provided $ 200 million in low-interest loans. The then struggling South Korea invested the money in industries that eventually contributed to its becoming an economic powerhouse.
Historians say that anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 women – many of them Korean – were forced to enlist in Japan’s military brothels.
– With help from Gareth Allan
(Updates with Japan’s rejection of the fifth paragraph lawsuit)