Japan raps S. Korea minister for calling comfort women sex slaves

February 23, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono criticized Friday the use of the expression sex slaves by a South Korean cabinet minister to refer to the so-called comfort women issue at a UN committee on Thursday.

The use of the expression for comfort women "is unacceptable for my country and is extremely regrettable," Kono told a news conference in Tokyo. Comfort women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula, were forced into prostitution for Japanese troops before and during World War II.

South Korean Gender Equality and Family Minister Chung Hyun-back used the controversial wording at a meeting of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women held in Geneva, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

Japan immediately protested against her remark.

Kono stressed that the term sex slaves "is against facts."

He noted that Japan and South Korea agreed on a position on the matter in the December 2015 bilateral agreement struck to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the comfort women issue.

"We will strongly urge the South Korean side to implement the agreement steadily," Kono said. Jiji Press