Korean victim of Japan's wartime sex slavery dies

SEOUL, Jan. 2 (Yonhap) -- Kim Sun-ak, one of the oldest surviving Korean victims
of Japan's wartime sex industry, died of cancer on Saturday, a survivor supporter
group said. She was 82.

Kim's death means there are now only 88 surviving women who were forced into
sexual slavery by Japan during World War II registered with the South Korean
government. Activists worry more of the aged victims will die without receiving
an apology or compensation from the Japanese government.
More than 200,000 women, mostly from Korea and also from other Asian countries,
were sexually enslaved by Japan during the war. Euphemistically called "comfort
women," they were victims of Japan's imperial expansion and colonization of the
Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
Kim, born in 1928 in Gyeongsan, a rural town in North Gyeongsang Province in the
country's southeast, was taken on a hoax job offer to Harbin in eastern China,
then Inner Mongolia and to a comfort women facility in Beijing in 1943.
From there, she was forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in northeastern
China for two years until Japanese colonial rule ended in 1945 following Japan's
defeat in the war, according to the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for
Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, a Seoul-based group that supports former sex
slaves by, among other activities, organizing protests against the Japanese
government.
The following year, Kim crossed the Amnok (Yalu) River that borders Korea and
moved south to Seoul, though she never managed to fully settle as she was plagued
by persistent poverty throughout her life.
Wandering from one place to the next across the country, Kim was registered with
the government as a sexual slavery victim in 2001, later joining other victims in
protest against Japan's denial of its involvement in the sex trade.
Japanese officials have expressed "regret" to the victims but have denied the
government's direct involvement, saying the young women were lured into frontline
brothels run by private agents.
Kim was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer and received successful surgery,
but her old age diminished her ability to combat the disease, the support group
said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)