Korea to raise sex slavery at U.N.

South Korea will raise the issue of aging Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II at this month’s U.N. General Assembly in New York, a senior official said Monday.

The move comes after South Korea last week blasted remarks by some nationalist Japanese officials, including Jin Matsubara, chairman of Japan’s National Public Safety Commission, who challenged Seoul to provide proof that the victims were forcibly drafted by the Japanese military.

The subject of former wartime sex slaves, euphemistically called “comfort women,” is one of the most emotional and unresolved issues between South Korea and Japan, which occupied the Korean Peninsula as its colony from 1910 to 1945.

“I think it is certain that the issue of comfort women will be discussed at the U.N. General Assembly,” the official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said on condition of anonymity.

South Korea was reviewing how it will raise the issue at the Assembly’s annual general debate, the official said.

It will not be the first time South Korea has raised the issue at the Assembly, but it will come as Seoul is considering forming an arbitration panel with Tokyo, in what would be the latest diplomatic bid to resolve longstanding grievances regarding the aging victims.

Diplomatic tension between Seoul and Tokyo remains high following the unprecedented Aug. 10 visit by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to the South Korean islets of Dokdo, which Japan also claims as its territory. Lee cited Japan’s unrepentant attitude over its brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, including the issue of Japan’s wartime sex slavery, as a key reason for the trip to Dokdo.

South Korea has pressed Japan to resolve the issue through apology and compensation for the aging Korean women on a humanitarian level, but Tokyo refuses to do so, saying the matter was already settled by a 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two countries.

Seoul officials, however, have stressed that the issue cannot be regarded as fully resolved by the 1965 Korea-Japan Claims Settlement Agreement because the wartime sex slavery was a “crime against humanity.”

The issue is becoming increasingly urgent as the surviving comfort women are elderly and may soon pass away. Historians say up to 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were coerced into sexual slavery at front-line Japanese military brothels during World War II and, currently, only 60 Korean victims are alive.

Meanwhile, a senior military source said the military will conduct a scaled-back military exercise in waters near Dokdo later this week with no Marine Corps landing maneuvers on the islets.

Seoul will kick off the four-day biannual drill Friday, where the Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard will conduct a joint operation to repel an encroaching vessel.

Previous exercises sometimes involved Marines rappelling onto the islets from helicopters if the weather was right. But this year’s drills won’t include any landing operations, a senior military official said.

The Coast Guard will play a leading role in defending Dokdo under this year’s scenario, while the military will provide support in practicing for a situation where civilians illegally land on the islets. (Yonhap News)