But the ties between the two countries have been thawing since a year ago when Seoul and Tokyo reached a landmark deal on Japan’s wartime atrocities and sex slave issue during the 1910-1945 colonial era.
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According to the Foreign Ministry, Japan will contribute some 1 billion yen ($9.5 million) to the foundation, the media outlet added.
Up to Korean 200,000 women became victims of Japanese sexual enslavement, with only 40 of them still confirmed alive.
The foundation, registered as a nonprofit corporation with South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, will be headed by Kim Tae-hyun, an honorary social welfare professor at Sungshin Women’s University. The man who killed her later said he felt “ignored” by women, and that sometimes they walked in front of him on the street and deliberately slowed their pace in order to make him late for work…. This would mean that the December 28 agreement and resulting foundation establishment bear some connection to the Korean Peninsula’s situation in the wake of the nuclear test and announced plans to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system with US Forces Korea and attempts to build up a trilateral alliance with the US.
Seoul government officials say Tokyo has yet to transfer the promised funds, but is expected to do so soon.
“I will never let go the hands of victims who chose to join (the foundation)…”
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The new foundation’s launch, however, was received with protest from a group of university students and social activists who accused Seoul of unilaterally signing the comfort women settlement against the wishes of some of the surviving victims. Despite objections from numerous comfort women survivors, the South Korean government established an advisory committee in January and a preparatory committee for the launch on May 31, with Sungshin Women’s University professor Kim Tae-hyun serving as chairperson.
