Comfort women statue to be put up near Washington

October 18, 2019

Washington--A groundbreaking ceremony for a statue of a girl symbolizing so-called comfort women was held in a suburb of Washington on Thursday.

The statue, to be put up by the end of the month, may stir up tensions between Japan and South Korea.

Comfort women are a sensitive issue between the two Asian countries because many Koreans were forced to provide sex for Japanese troops before and during World War II.

The statue has been stored in a warehouse since 2016 when a Korean-American group tried to set it up in Washington but failed due to protests, according to Park Jun-hyeong, head of the group.

The establishment of the statue will be realized after the group found private land to set it up in Annandale, northern Virginia, where many Korean-Americans live.

The statue, the fifth such statue in the United States and first near the capital, will be unveiled on Oct. 27.

The purpose of the establishment is to "inform or educate our people," Park said, noting that some people, including second-generation Korean-Americans born and raised in the United States, don't know the history of Japanese colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

The move came solely "from women and from citizens," Park said, denying ties with the South Korean government. Jiji Press