hankyoreh

The 1,439th Wednesday demonstration takes place in front of the former Japanese Embassy in Seoul on May 13. (Jeon Gwang-joon, staff reporter)

A group of South Korean and Japanese students and young people who seek a solution to the comfort women issue released a statement in support of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery (Korean Council).

Eighty-one students and young people from South Korea and Japan made their statement public on the morning of May 15. “We have transcended the national borders and the language barrier separating Korea and Japan to work toward a solution to the comfort women issue. Now we are worried that the speculation and slander against the Korean Council will erase the history of its 30-year campaign to resolve the comfort women issue,” they said.

The Korean Council has recently been accused of keeping sloppy records of how it used its donations.

“Even though the Korean Council immediately declared that it has used all donations for the demonstrations, some media outlets have insulted all its activities for days on end. We are issuing this statement because these unfounded conjectures are being spread as if they were true,” the group explained.

“The Korean Council has been an inspiration, a motivation, and a model for us. If we had not followed in its footsteps, we would never have learned about the comfort women issue,” the group said, while harshly criticizing the reports in question as being “a distortion produced by ignorance of the history of the comfort women movement.”

“It’s a shame that these reports are threatening that movement’s very existence,” the group added.

“Even after we learned about the comfort women issue, it wasn’t easy to take action. Those of us in Korea hesitated because of pessimism about what was possible, and those of us in Japan were afraid it would be presumptuous for citizens of the aggressor to step forward. But the slogans chanted in unison in the Wednesday demonstration have brought us to where we are today. We will stand together in support of the Korean Council to keep the driving force of our movement from being extinguished,” the group said, wrapping up its statement.

By Bae Ji-hyun, staff reporter

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