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S.Korea to launch preparatory committee for WWII sex slavery victims foundation

Xinhua, May 30, 2016 Adjust font size:

South Korea's foreign ministry said Monday that a preparatory committee will be launched on Tuesday to establish the World War II sexual slavery victims foundation, which was agreed upon in December last year with Japan.

The foundation preparatory committee will hold the first meeting in Seoul on Tuesday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a joint statement with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The committee chair will hold a press conference after the meeting.

The meeting would come about five months after Seoul and Tokyo agreed on Dec. 28 in 2015 to set up a foundation to support the so-called comfort women, a euphemism referring to Korean women coerced into sexual servitude for Japanese military brothels before and during World War II.

Historians said that as many as 200,000 women, mostly from the Korean peninsula as well as from China and Southeast Asian nations, were forced into sex enslavement. Among 238 South Koreans who identified themselves as former sex slaves, only 44 are alive. Nine victims passed away in 2015 alone due to their old age.

Under the Dec. 28 agreement, Japan pledged to pay 1 billion yen (about 8.3 million U.S. dollars) from its state funds to launch a new foundation for the comfort women in South Korea. In return, Seoul agreed on a "final and irreversible" resolution on the wartime sex slavery issue.

The foundation will reportedly be launched formally within next month after review and preparations through the preparatory committee.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed his sincere apology and remorse through the Dec. 28 agreement, but he has denied the forcible recruitment of sex slaves by the Japanese government. Seoul has claimed that comfort women were forcibly recruited against their will by the Japanese military and government.

South Korean sex slavery victims and advocacy groups have continued rally to protest the agreement every Wednesday in front of Japanese embassy in Seoul. They said the agreement must be nullified and renegotiated, while the victims expressed reluctance to receive the funds from Japanese government coffers. Enditem