President Moon Jae-in agrees. A presidential spokesperson was unavailable for comment. A spokesperson for the National Assembly was unavailable for comment. In , the Korean government announced it reached an agreement with Japan. But they misjudged how deeply ingrained the issue is in South Korean society. At the centre of this controversy is a bronze statue of a young Korean girl. It sits in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, where protesters have gathered every Wednesday since According to Hyo, many Japanese have gone to the Uncomfort Women Project website to upload photos of themselves in support of the cause.
The Uncomfort Women Project seeks to engage a global audience and uses geotagging to place the geographical location of the photos at the UN headquarters in New York. There are only 35 Korean comfort women survivors alive today. Most live with family or in government-run care centres. Their average age is years-old.
Two died last August. Nine survivors live at House of Sharing, located in a suburb southeast of Seoul. The adjacent buildings house a museum dedicated to comfort women from Korea and the rest of Asia, including Japan. The South Korean president has also mentioned a national museum for comfort women to be opened by , pending government approval.
Anh believes another museum dedicated to women and human rights will help bring more international visitors to the country and raise the profile of the comfort women issue abroad. Sunghee Oh and Hyo Jin-kim know a comfort women museum will infuriate hardline Japanese, who believe comfort women were prostitutes who voluntarily gave up their freedom to serve the colonial military until the end of World War II.
Since , August 14th is the date set aside to remember comfort women in South Korea. There are women still suffering because of the abuse faced over 70 years ago.
