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Lawyers from MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society and former comfort women hold a press conference at Our House of Peace

Ten former comfort women submitted a petition to the United Nations asking it to confirm whether an agreement announced on the issue by the South Korean and Japanese foreign ministers on Dec. 28 of last year conforms to international human rights standards.

The group MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, which is serving as legal representative for Kim Bok-dong, Lee Yong-soo, Gil Won-ok, and seven other survivors, explained the decision during a Jan. 28 press conference at Our House of Peace, a shelter for comfort women survivors run by the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Jeongdaehyeop) in Seoul’s Mapo District.

“Petitions were submitted to human rights agreement bodies and special rapporteurs to ask for their determination as to whether the agreement can be viewed as an official apology acknowledging Japan’s legal responsibility,” the group said.

Speaking as a representative of the survivors, Kim said they “cannot accept the Dec. 28 agreement.”

“The one billion yen (US$8.4 million) the Japanese government offered to give has no meaning for us. What we want is the Japanese government’s acknowledgement of legal responsibility and an official apology,” she said.

The petition in the name of Kim and the nine other survivors argues that the agreement “omits measures such as an investigation into the comfort women situation, punishment of those responsible, history education to prevent future reoccurrences, and a stern response to the distortions of the facts and misstatements.”

“[The agreement] does not meet international standards,” it concludes.

Kim Gi-nam, an attorney with MINBYUN’s international solidarity committee who oversaw the petition process, noted that international human rights standards “would require the Japanese government to reach a ‘victim-centered’ agreement and assume legal responsibility after stating clearly that the [drafting of] comfort women for the Japanese military was a war crime.”

“Since all of that is missing from this agreement, it does not meet international human rights standards,” Kim argued.

The petition is also expected to be delivered within a week or so to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who previously welcomed the intergovernmental agreement last year.

By Kim Mi-hyang, staff reporter

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