The City of Glendale in California, U.S. will install a statue identical to one of a Korean girl that sits in Seoul in front of the Japanese Embassy as a reminder of Korean comfort women.

The Korean American Forum of California said on its website that it is installing a statue in front of the Glendale Central Library to memorialize the victims of sexual slavery at the hands of the Japanese Imperial military during World War II.

Glendale, about 16 km northeast of Los Angeles, is the third largest city in California.

The city council moved on March 26 to install a comfort women monument in a public space in front of the Glendale Central Library. The forum is currently collecting donations online.

The forum also expects the statue to be unveiled around July 30. Last year, Glendale declared July 30 Korean Comfort Women Day.

“The girl statue was made in South Korea and is expected in the U.S. late this month,” a Forum official was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

The statue will be the same in shape and size as the one set up in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul. It will be the first time for such sculpture to be installed outside Korea.

Last December, Korean-Americans in California built a comfort women monument in a private shopping mall owned by a Korean-American in Garden Grove, Orange County, California. This time, they will place the statue in a public lot.

A total of 32 monuments to the Korean comfort women are displayed in public places in New York and New Jersey.

Glendale Mayor Frank Quintero, a Vietnam War veteran, visited the statue in Seoul in April. During a press conference, he promised to work to raise awareness of the comfort women issue.

The forum is a group of Korean-Americans in California who campaign for Japan to formally acknowledge and apologize for its World War II military sexual slavery.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)