Politics & Government

S. Korean Group to Erect Comfort Women Statue in U.S.

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
The Foreign Ministry building in Tokyo

Jiji Press

16:21 JST, October 23, 2022

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — A South Korean group in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, plans to build a park featuring a statue of a girl symbolizing so-called comfort women, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said Friday.

An inscription saying in multiple languages that the statue commemorates the victims of the system implemented by the now-defunct Imperial Japanese Army is expected to be placed in the park, the officials said at a meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

The officials also said that a similar statue was erected at the University of Kassel in Hessen, Germany, in July mainly by students.

Its inscription says in German that the Imperial Japanese Army kidnapped girls and women, according to the officials.

LDP lawmakers briefed about these moves called for a comprehensive and strategic response.

Comfort women are women, mainly Koreans, who worked as prostitutes for Japanese troops before and during World War II.