Korea Setting up Fund to Compensate Victims of Forced Labour During Japanese Colonial Rule

South Korea on Monday announced plans to compensate victims of Japan’s forced wartime labour. Japan occupied South Korea for 35 years and Japanese companies at that time forced at least a million Koreans to work for them without compensating them and under poor conditions.

The move was welcomed by Japan but South Korea Japanese participation in the potential fund which is being set up to compensate those victims. The victims said that the move fell far short of their demand for a full apology from Tokyo. Their representatives said it did not demand direct compensation from the Japanese companies involved.

South Korea and Japan plan to strengthen bilateral ties as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues to threaten the region with ballistic missiles and possible nuclear tests. But Seoul and Tokyo have a troubled relationship because of Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.

Official figures say around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during its 35-year occupation. This data does not include the Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.

South Korean foreign minister Park Jin said that Seoul plans to take money from Korean companies which benefited from the 1965 reparations deal with Tokyo and use it to compensate victims.

Jin said he hoped Tokyo would respond through “voluntary contributions and a comprehensive apology”.

His Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the move.

“In every area from security to economy, we have to work with Japan closely, given the global political landscape and a series of complex crises around it. It is in our best interest to start mending the frayed ties with Japan. This is our last opportunity to see that happen,” Jin said.

“The measure marks a return to an amicable time disrupted by the 2018 ruling,” Hayashi said, welcoming the initiative. He reiterated that the Fumio Kishida-led government continues to support the 1998 declaration that included an apology.

The ties between both nations deteriorated in 2018 after the South Korean Supreme Court ruled that some Japanese companies should pay compensation to those impacted during the Japanese colonial era.

The US also welcomed the move and called it a “groundbreaking new chapter of cooperation and partnership between two of the United States’ closest allies”, in a statement released by the White House.

Lim Jae-sung, the attorney that won the 2018 Supreme Court case, downplayed the impact of the announcement saying that Japan is “yet to pay a penny”.

“The victims alive had all rejected to agree to what the government proposed,” Lim said. Victim Yang Geum-deok also immediately denounced it. “I won’t take money that seems like the result of begging. You must apologise first and then work through everything else,” Yang said.

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