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A participant in the 1,562nd Wednesday Demonstration in Seoul holds up a sign calling for honor and human rights to be afforded to the aging survivors of Japan’s wartime system of sexual slavery on Sept. 21.

The 1,562nd Wednesday Demonstration to resolve the matter of sexual slavery by the Japanese military took place outside the former Japanese Embassy in the Junghak neighborhood of Seoul’s Jongno District on Wednesday at a time when prospects remain unclear on whether South Korea and Japan will hold a bilateral summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

In a statement, the participants accused President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration of “using the state funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as a pretext for sending a mourning delegation to pursue a summit.”

“This is not something that has been agreed upon at a societal level, and it leaves us feeling perplexed and angry,” they added.

Participants in the 1,562nd Wednesday Demonstration in Seoul hold up signs during their demonstration on Sept. 21 outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

“If the South Korean government is going to proactively negotiate with the Japanese government to resolve the matters of forced labor mobilization and sexual slavery by the Japanese military, we ask that it do so with dignity as a sovereign state rather than from a posture of humiliation and self-mortification, fulfilling its role as a spokesperson for the courageous victims who have been writing a new chapter in the history of international human rights,” they stressed.

Participants in the 1,562nd Wednesday Demonstration in Seoul hold up signs calling for a formal apology from Japan and legal recompense during their demonstration on Sept. 21 outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

Members of a group that calls itself the Anti-Abe Anti-Japan Youth and Student Joint Action shout a slogan as they continue to sit and guard the Statue of Peace in downtown Seoul on Sept. 21.

Photos and article by Kang Chang-kwang, staff reporter

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