Memorial Day in South Korea for Comfort Woman
The international memorial day was held for Asian women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.
The National ceremony marking the International Memorial Day for Comfort Women took place at the Hill of National Commemoration in Cheonan, south of Seoul, with the slogan of "memory for the future."
About 100 people, including elderly Korean women sexually enslaved by the imperial Japanese army, participated.
South Koreans have called on Japan to offer a sincere apology and compensation for the victims, but the neighbouring country has remained silent.
It is the third time that the government has hosted a national ceremony commemorating the day since 2018, when it was designated a national memorial day.
The International Memorial Day for Comfort Women falls on Aug. 14th, the day when the late Kim Hak-soon, a former comfort woman, first publicly testified about Japan operating an organized military brothel program during the war in 1991.
"The testimony by Kim Hak-soon resonated across the globe, revealing the truth and the violence against women," she said. "Now we have to think of what we can learn from the tragedy in history."
The government then opened a digital archive that stored more than 500 files of documents and materials on "comfort women," a euphemistic term for the former sex slaves.
The online depository (www.archive814.co.kr) includes reports by the United Nations forces during the Korean War and official statements by the Japanese government.
Up to 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were coerced into sexual servitude in front-line Japanese brothels when the Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony.
