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staff photographer)

“Far from apologizing, the Japanese are causing a trade war.”

“Japan hasn’t yet acknowledged its [past] mistakes and is now taking the ironic stance of sanctioning our country [South Korea] economically.”

As rain drizzled down at noon on Aug. 7, around 10 middle and high school students calmly criticized the Japanese government on a stage in front of where the Japanese embassy formerly sat in Seoul’s Jongro District. The students had gathered for the 1,399th weekly Wednesday Demonstration to call for an official apology from the Japanese government for the sexual enslavement of Koreans euphemistically referred to as the comfort women. The gathering was the first since Aug. 2, when the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo decided to remove South Korea from its “white list,” a list of countries entitled to receive preferential treatment in trade with Japan. The students criticized both the harm done by the Japanese military’s sexual enslavement of Korean women and the economic measures taken by the Abe administration against South Korea. Around 500 people (according to organizers’ estimates) in raincoats and holding umbrellas listened to the students as they spoke.

399th Wednesday Demonstration in front of the former Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Aug. 7. (Park Jong-shik

Middle-school student Pak Su-bin, who says that she wants to become a diplomat to prevent a repetition of such painful history, stepped up to the stage. “How much longer do we have to hear news of Japan’s shameless actions?” she asked. “Japan should instead be thinking about apologizing to the comfort women grandmothers instead of [taking South Korea] off the white list and grumbling about removing the Statue of Peace.” Chae Ga-eun, the chairwoman of “Flapping Wings,” a club made up of high school students based in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, told the crowd that “Far from apologizing, the Japanese are creating a trade war. It’s absolutely ridiculous.” She also remarked that “I believe that just like the boycott campaign against Japan - a small campaign when it started - is having an effect [on Japan], our efforts at the Wednesday demonstrations, at some point, will also have a major effect on Japan.”

Im Hyo-chang, chairman of the Bugwang High School (Incheon) branch of the politics and diplomacy club Voluntary Agency Network of Korea (VANK), told the crowd that “Japan must genuinely apologize to the comfort women survivors rather than taking revenge [on South Korea] with its great technological and economic power.”

In the crowd were parents holding the hands of their children. Lee Eun-young, chairwoman of Seoul’s Gwanak District Women’s Association, said, “To commemorate the March 1 Movement and the 100th anniversary of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, around 40 local residents agreed that their kids need to properly understand their history and brought their children – all of whom are currently on summer vacation - to the gathering.” Eom Sang-hee, 9, who participated in the Wednesday Demonstration for the first time, hands clasped in her mother’s, said, “The [comfort women] grandmothers must have had a tough time after being taken to Japan. I’m sad that they have died, but it’s interesting to see everyone come together [to hear the speakers]. I want to come here again in the future.”

Participants of the 1

Former comfort women were unable to attend the gathering. Han Kyung-hee, secretary-general of The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Jeongdaehyeop), said that most of the former comfort women are older than 90 years old and that five or six of them are in the hospital, so only a few are able to attend such gatherings. Even those who want to attend the gatherings have difficulty moving around or suffer from dementia so many of them are unable to attend, and a couple of them attend the gatherings when they feel alright but that is not often, she said. “Another comfort woman survivor died on Aug. 4 so there are only 20 survivors left,” Lee continued, adding that “I have to brace myself each time another survivor passes away.”

The 1,400th Wednesday demonstration is planned for Aug. 14. That day is also the seventh International Memorial Day for Comfort Women commemorating survivor Kim Hak-soon’s public testimony about the Japanese military’s sexual slavery. Jeongdaehyeop has announced plans to hold joint gatherings in 19 cities across seven countries on that day, which is a day before the commemoration of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial occupation, and also plans to hold solidarity rallies in several places, including Tokyo and Nagoya in Japan, Taipei, Taiwan, and Auckland, New Zealand.

By Kwon Ji-dam, staff reporter

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