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Together Citizens’ Party lawmaker Yoon Mee-hyang during a Wednesday demonstration. (Hankyoreh archives)

A Korean organization that advocates for the comfort women and its former chair Yoon Mee-hyang, who was recently elected to South Korea’s National Assembly with the Together Citizens’ Party, are at the center of a widening scandal. The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Korean Council) has failed to properly explain its sloppy accounting of state subsidies and donations, and allegations continue to be raised about the operation and sale of a shelter for former comfort women, women forced into sexual servitude by the imperial Japanese army.

This scandal is seriously harming the steady progress achieved despite the odds over the past 30 years by the victims, activists, and ordinary citizens who have joined the comfort women movement.

Yoon is even facing accusations that she has changed her story during the explanations she’s provided in interviews with the press. The plot continues to thicken with each passing day. When questions were raised about why Yoon used 750 million won (US$908,978) of 1 billion won (US$812,130) in earmarked funding from Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2013 to buy a shelter in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province — quite an awkward location for the former comfort women — Yoon claimed it was impossible to buy a house anywhere in Seoul’s Mapo District for 1 billion won (US$812,130). But critics have said that plenty of houses were sold for that price around that time, even in Mapo District.

When Yoon was asked about where she’d gotten the money to buy an apartment at an auction in 2012, she initially said she’d used the proceeds from the sale of her previous apartment. But just a few hours later, she said she’d raised the money by cashing out an installment savings account and borrowing money from family members. Questions are also being raised about what Yoon did with the money that was donated to several of her personal accounts, money she’d raised with the ostensible purpose of covering the former comfort women’s overseas activities and funeral expenses.

All this has even prompted members of the ruling Democratic Party to raise their concerns. Former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, currently a lawmaker, said he’s taking the current situation very seriously.

Yoon needs to provide a transparent and public explanation for all these allegations. She should organize an official press conference at which she provides bank account records or other credible evidence. While Yoon has been a dedicated leader of the comfort women movement — a movement that she herself began at a time when no else was willing to deal with the comfort women issue — it’s also true that she essentially ran her organization as a one-woman show. As a result, she’s the only one who can accurately explain the details of how its funds were used.

Yoon needs to recognize that the current situation is directly connected to Korean society’s trust in the comfort women movement. This problem can’t be cleared up by retorting that the conservative parties and press are maliciously distorting the facts and exploiting the situation for political ends. Yoon might like to say that no legal wrongdoing has been uncovered and that she’ll prove her integrity through her work in the National Assembly, but that won’t be enough to stop the comfort woman movement from being wrecked. Considering that the prosecutors have already launched their investigation, there’s no more time for dilly-dallying.

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]