Japan forcibly mobilized 120,000 Koreans as laborers: panel

SEOUL, Jan. 30 (Yonhap) -- Nearly 120,000 Koreans were forcibly mobilized as laborers under Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula in the early 1900s, a state investigative committee said Friday.

Historical records have shown that Japan drafted hundreds of thousands of Koreans
to work at coal mines and military facilities or serve as sex slaves in and
outside of Japan in the later years of its 1910-45 colonial occupation of the
peninsula.
The Truth Commission on Forced Mobilization under the Japanese Imperialism of
Republic of Korea, run under the prime minister's office, said that it has so far
confirmed that 118,520 Koreans were forced into labor in Japan during the
colonial era.
In 2006, the commission began the process of verifying a document produced by the
South Korean government in 1957 that recorded some 285,000 names and addresses of
those that were known to have been forced to work for Japan.
"We're still continuing with the process but it is highly likely that many of the
remaining 166,000 were also forced to work for the imperial Japanese government,"
an official at the commission said.
The commission also said that since April 2005 an additional 220,000 people have
been reported as being mobilized by Japan during colonial rule.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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