S. Korea to Set Up Research Institute on Comfort Women in Aug.

May 18, 2018

Seoul- -South Korea's Gender Equality and Family Ministry is preparing to open a research institute on so-called comfort women in August, ministry officials said Thursday.

The new institute will collect records related to wartime prostitutes for soldiers to study Korean comfort women for the now-defunct Imperial Japanese Army, according to the officials.

Meeting with the press on Wednesday, Gender Equality and Family Minister Chung Hyun-back said South Korea should become the "mecca" for the issue of wartime suppression of women's rights, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

The South Korean government has made it clear that it will not seek to scrap or renegotiate the 2015 agreement with the Japanese government to "finally and irreversibly resolve" the Korean comfort women issue. But Seoul has also shown the stance of presenting the issue as an international human rights problem.

In November last year, South Korea's parliament passed a law amendment to designate Aug. 14 as a day to honor former comfort women.

The first government event related to such women may be held on Aug. 14 this year, as the revised law obliges the central and regional governments to make efforts to promote the purpose of the comfort women's day, people familiar with the matter said. Jiji Press