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Wartime sex abuse in spotlight as South Korea-Japan rift deepens
- Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha says South Korea will host an international conference on sexual violence in conflict this year
- This is the latest sign of escalating tensions, following incidents involving air and naval defence forces
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South Korea will use an international conference to highlight wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese, including sex abuse, its Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha has said, in a move that is likely to escalate tensions between the countries.
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Kang said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos last week that South Korea would host an international conference on sexual violence in conflict during the first half of this year.
“The conference is not to address [the comfort women] issue per se, but to make sure that their historical experience is not lost,” Kang said.
The countries have shared a bitter history since Japan’s 1910-45 colonisation of the Korean peninsula and its use of forced labourers and abuse of ‘comfort women’ – girls and women forced into sex slavery at military brothels – during the second world war.
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Tokyo insists the issue was resolved when both parties signed a deal in 2015 under the Park Geun-hye administration, but Seoul later declared the deal “flawed”.
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