Hyundai Heavy Industries said Thursday it has donated 1 billion won ($880,000) to set up a “healing center” for former sex slaves who were forcibly taken by the Japanese army into sex slavery during World War II.

The center, tentatively named the “House for Healing and Peace,” will offer diverse welfare programs for the remaining 60 victims of Japan’s wartime sex crimes here as well as history education for visitors, the company said.

Starting with the first case of Kim Hak-soon in 1991, a total of 235 women reported themselves as former sex slaves to the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. But now there are only 60 survivors aged 84-94.

Individual civic groups have provided shelters for them but there has been no welfare facility supporting them. The new center will be built near the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum in Mapo-gu, Seoul, with the completion date still under discussion.

(jylee@heraldcorp.com)