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fourth from the left) and members of the Nagoya Support Group for the Korean Women Forced Labor Corps’ Lawsuit Against Mitsubishi in front of Gwangju Local Court celebrate after winning their suit for compensation from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

By Jung Dae-ha, Gwangju correspondent

Yang Geum-deok was in the courtroom on the second floor of the local courthouse in Gwangju on the afternoon of Nov. 1. Even after she heard the judge read the verdict, she looked around as if she couldn’t believe what she had heard.

Someone whispered into her ear, “You won!”

Justice Lee Jong-Gwang from the 12th civil law division at the Gwangju Local Court partially ruled in favor of Yang, 85, and the other four plaintiffs in their claim for compensation from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The plaintiffs had been drafted into a corps of female Korean workers during the Japanese occupation of Korea and forced to do backbreaking labor at a Japanese munitions plant without receiving a penny for their work.

The court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to provide 150 million won (US$141,270) to the four victims and 80 million won (US$75,350) to another person whose wife and younger sister had died. In total, Mitsubishi was told to pay 680 million won (US$640,400) in compensation.

On May 24, 2012, the Korean Supreme Court ruled that those who were drafted into labor during the Japanese occupation are still able to file individual claims. This was the third case since that decision in which victims have won in damage claims filed against Japanese companies

In July 2012, two other Korean courts ordered Japanese companies to provide compensations to victims. The Seoul High Court ordered Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal to pay 100 million won in compensation to each plaintiff, while the Busan High Court found that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had to give each plaintiff 80 million won.

“I think that I can finally let go of the bitterness in my heart,” Yang said. Tricked by promises to give her an education, Yang joined the women’s forced labor corps in May 1944, at the age of 14. She worked at an aircraft manufacturing plant run by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Nagoya, Japan, until Korea’s liberation.

In Oct. 1945, she returned empty-handed to her home of Naju in South Jeolla Province. She was not paid any wages for her work. Her neighbors started talking behind her back, thinking that her time in the forced labor corps meant she was a comfort woman. This caused her husband to doubt her and complicated her married life.

The plaintiffs’ victory in court is also significant since it represents the results of Japanese and Korean citizens taking part in a movement to rectify the mistakes of history.

After the verdict was read, Yang walked down the steps in the courthouse, hand in hand with Makoto Takahashi, 72, co-president of the Nagoya Support Group for the Korean Women Forced Labor Corps’ Lawsuit Against Mitsubishi. Ten Japanese members of the support group were present to watch the trial. “I’m very grateful to these people,” Yang said.

Takahashi established the support group in 1986 when he learned that 288 young Korean women had been drafted as laborers during the Japanese occupation of Korea. He was working as a high school history teacher at the time.

Today, the members of the Nagoya group include professors and lawyers, among others.

After finally managing to locate Yang and seven others, the group filed a lawsuit with the Nagoya Local Court in Mar. 1999 on behalf of the eight women. In the suit, they asked the Japanese government and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to compensate the women.

The Supreme Court of Japan rejected the claim in Nov. 2008, reasoning that all individual rights to file for compensation had been rendered null when Japan and Korea signed their Treaty on Basic Relations in 1965.

After the plaintiffs lost their case at Japan’s highest court, the Civic Group That Stands with the Women’s Forced Labor Corps was established in Gwangju.

On June 23, 2010, the group visited the headquarters of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Tokyo. They carried with them a document signed by about 135,000 citizens and carried out a “three steps, one bow” ritual. Then in Oct. 2012, they filed for compensation with the Gwangju Local Court.

“It was a lonely struggle, but with enough drops of water you can shatter the hardest rock,” said Lee Guk-eon, manager for the group, referring to how the citizens came together to defeat the company that was guilty of war crimes.

“I hope that Mitsubishi will bear in mind that the plaintiffs are approaching ninety years old and humbly accept the verdict,” Lee said.

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