S. Korean politicians join 'comfort women' rally

SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Yonhap) -- Braving steamy heat, dozens of ruling and opposition lawmakers joined a street rally Wednesday to call for Japan to apologize and compensate Korean women mobilized as sex slaves during its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
About 30 lawmakers as well as former senior officials held picket signs and shouted slogans during the rally in front of the Japanese Embassy, along with members of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and their supporters.



Council members and some former sex slaves, known as "comfort women," have held a rally on every Wednesday since January 1992, demanding that Japan provide victims with reparations, fully disclose its wartime sexual enslavement, construct a memorial for the victims and take other measures.
This week's was the 982nd protest. The lawmakers' participation in the rally came ahead of the 88th anniversary of Korea's liberation from Japanese colonial rule, which falls on Monday.
"Japan is still evading responsibility and distorting truth," Rep. Chung Mong-joon said in a party meeting held ahead of the protest. "Japan should face up to history if it is a civilized nation."
The six-term lawmaker's participation was the latest in a series of campaigns to support the surviving comfort women, mostly in their 70s and 80s. Though a total of 234 former sex slaves have registered with the organization, only 70 of them are still alive.
Last week, Chung delivered a letter signed by 130 legislators to the Japanese embassy, urging Tokyo's cooperation in compensation of wartime victims before it's too late.
Tokyo acknowledges recruiting the comfort women, mostly from Korea but also from Taiwan, the Philippines and China but insists that it was done by private agencies and not the government.
Historians say more than 200,000 women fell victim to the Imperial Japanese Army, which coaxed or forced young girls to work in front-line brothels.