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Lee Yong-soo, a survivor of sexual slavery by the Japanese military, makes her way to the Blue House on Tuesday morning to deliver a letter to President Moon Jae-in calling for the “comfort women” issue to be referred to the UN Committee Against Torture. (Shin So-young/The Hankyoreh)

Lee Yong-soo, a 94-year-old survivor of the Japanese military’s system of sexual exploitation, visited the Blue House to urge the Moon administration to refer the “comfort women” issue to the UN’s Committee Against Torture.

Lee arrived at the Blue House on Tuesday morning and met with a Blue House administrative official, to whom she delivered a letter signed by other survivors of Japan’s “comfort women” system, including 94-year-old Kang Il-chul, 97-year-old Park Ok-seon, 94-year-old Lee Ok-seon, 92-year-old Lee Ok-seon, and 94-year-old Park Pil-geun. The letter asked that the government refer the “comfort women” matter to the UN’s anti-torture body.

Lee previously visited the Blue House privately on Jan. 14 and delivered a handwritten letter to the office of the senior presidential secretary for civil society requesting the matter be referred to the UN.

Kim Hyun-jung, the spokesperson for a committee advocating for the “comfort women” issue to be referred to the International Court of Justice, said, “There was no response from the Blue House after Jan. 14, so [Lee] went to the House of Sharing and explained [the situation] to the other grandmothers [who survived the system] and collected their signatures before returning [to the Blue House].”

“We believe that President Moon Jae-in will absolutely give us an answer,” Kim added.

Both Lee and the committee have repeated calls for the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery to be dealt with by the International Court of Justice. But because Japan must consent to a referral to the court, their efforts were stymied.

Together with the committee, Lee held a press conference last October where she stated that the Japanese military had inflicted severe physical and psychological suffering on victims constituting criminality, and called for an alternative way of dressing the issue by referring it to the UN Committee Against Torture.

Last year, Lee also met with the First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choi Jong-kun on Nov. 29 and Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum on Dec. 1 to deliver her appeal. She also met with Song Doo-hwan, chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, to urge Korea to press forward with a referral of the issue to the UN Committee Against Torture.

“As I collected signatures from the other grandmothers, we all held one another and wept,” Lee said. “We must resolve this injustice and Japan must [be recognized as] a criminal state.”

“President Moon must solve the comfort women issue. I have faith that he will,” she said.

By Seo Hye-mi, staff reporter

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