A dispute over settlement payment to a former comfort woman

Posted on : 2017-01-19 16:29 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Kim Bok-deuk now saying she wishes to return 100 million won payment, signed for by her nephew
Song Do-ja
Song Do-ja

Kim Bok-deuk, a living symbol of the battle for an apology from the Japanese government to surviving comfort women, was paid a settlement 100 million won (US$84,900) by the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation without her consent, it has been alleged.

The money received by Kim, 100, came from a contribution paid by the Japanese government. The foundation, which issues the payments to survivors on Tokyo’s behalf, said it had received the consent of Kim and her family members, while a civic group supporting the survivors said she was tricked into accepting the settlement.

“Kim is currently hospitalized with symptoms of dementia, yet the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation deceived this elderly woman and paid her 100 million won,” said Song Do-ja, representative of the group Tongyeong and Geoje Citizens Supporting the Japanese Military Comfort Women, at a Jan. 18 press conference in the South Gyeongsang Province Assembly briefing room.

“In so doing, it sold out the dignity of a woman who has fought to receive an apology from the Japanese government,” Song added.

Song also shared transcripts from a Jan. 17 conversation with Kim, with remarks suggesting she was unaware that the money had been received.

“If they saw the agreement, shouldn’t they tell me, ‘We saw the agreement,’ ‘We received the money’? How should I know if they got 100 million won or 50,000 won (US$42.40)? I didn’t see it,” Kim was quoted as saying.

After learning that the money had been received, a tearful Kim insisted that “it needs to be given back.”

On Dec. 28, 2015, the South Korean and Japanese governments reached an agreement on the comfort women issue in which Japan provided a payment of 1 billion yen (US$8.7 million) to the former. The Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, which was launched in July 2016, used the contribution from Tokyo to make its own payments of 100 million won to each of the comfort women survivors. As of Jan. 18, 34 of the 46 survivors alive at the time of the agreement had agreed to accept the payments, and 31 had actually received the money.

The foundation said it had visited Kim twice in the hospital in 2016 and received her definite consent, after which the 100 million won was paid in two installments, in November and December.

“On June 15 of last year, we were granted permission from Kim’s nephew to go to her hospital, and she said, ‘It’s not what I wanted, but all right. I’d like to give the money to my nephew,’” a foundation source said.

The same source added, “We met with the nephew at the hospital on Oct. 7, and he drafted a cash payment request in Kim’s name, which he applied her seal to. On that day as well, Kim said she wanted to give the money to her nephew and granddaughter. She also pled with us not to ’let those Japanese bastards go back on their apology.‘”

In response to the claims, Kim’s nephew, 48, said, “I received the 100 million won because my aunt gave her consent, and I haven’t spent any of it, so I have the entire amount.”

“If my aunt says to give it back, I will give it back immediately. I intend to do whatever my aunt wishes,” he added.

In 1939, at age 22, Kim was taken away by a conscription recruiter and forced to serve as a Japanese military comfort woman in China and the Philippines before being freed in 1945. She registered with the South Korean government as a comfort woman survivor in 1994 and subsequently campaigned actively for an apology from Tokyo. Since Nov. 6, 2013, she has been hospitalized with Alzheimer’s disease at Tongyeong Sanitorium Hospital in South Gyeongsang Province.

By Choi Sang-won, South Gyeongsang correspondent

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