{"id":241397,"date":"2025-02-18T11:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T11:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/18\/korean-victim-of-wwii-sex-slavery-who-fought-for-japans-apology-dies\/"},"modified":"2025-02-18T11:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-18T11:11:17","slug":"korean-victim-of-wwii-sex-slavery-who-fought-for-japans-apology-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/18\/korean-victim-of-wwii-sex-slavery-who-fought-for-japans-apology-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Korean Victim of WWII Sex Slavery Who Fought for Japan\u2019s Apology Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/18\/multimedia\/18-SKorea-Obit-01-qphf\/18-SKorea-Obit-01-qphf-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Korean Victim of WWII Sex Slavery Who Fought for Japan\u2019s Apology Dies\" title=\"Korean Victim of WWII Sex Slavery Who Fought for Japan\u2019s Apology Dies\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Gil Won-ok, one of the last survivors of sexual slavery in brothels for Japan\u2019s World War II troops, who campaigned to bring international attention to the suffering of thousands of women like her\u200b, died this week at her home. She was 96.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Gil\u2019s death at her home in Incheon, west of Seoul, on Sunday was confirmed by the South Korean government. The cause of her death was not revealed. \u200bOfficials said that in her last years, Ms. Gil had suffered Alzheimer\u2019s and a host of other ailments \u200boften associated with old age.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">To her final days, Ms. Gil had fiercely criticized Japan, accusing the government of \u200brefusing to take legal responsibility for sexual slavery and offer compensation to the victims, euphemistically known as \u201ccomfort women.\u201d She died with her tireless demand unmet,\u200b but she had said that the campaign for justice \u200bwould continue after her death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Despite the stigma, around 240 South Korean women came forward to report their painful past as comfort women since their government began accepting registration in the early 1990s. Now, only seven of them \u2014 with an average age of 95 \u2014 are still alive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey are wrong if they think it will be over when the last of us die,\u201d Ms. Gil said in 2013. \u201cThere will be our descendants continuing to campaign as long as it takes to get the apology we deserve. It will not be over with our death.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In South Korea, the women forced into sexual slavery have been widely accepted as a deeply emotional symbol of Korea\u2019s suffering under colonial rule by Japan from 1910 to 1945, and its need for historical justice.\u200b A parade of politicians and senior government officials attended the funeral service held for Ms. Gil on Tuesday or sent wreaths and issued statements in her honor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201c\u200bThrough her life, we have seen what human dignity is,\u201d Woo Won-shik, the speaker of the National Assembly, said in a social media post after visiting a mourning station on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Gil was born in 1928 in Hoichon, in what is now the northwest of North Korea. Japan then ruled Korea as a colony,\u200b and Korea had not yet been divided into North and South.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u200bShe was living in Pyongyang \u200band was barely 13 when she was recruited for Japanese soldiers in northeast China. After one year, she was sent home with sexually transmitted diseases. After returning to China in 1942 to find work to support her poor family, she was again forced to work in a military brothel \u200bfor Japanese troops.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After the war ended with Japan\u2019s defeat, Ms. Gil returned to Korea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Like many former comfort women, she never married and long kept her past a secret.\u200b She later adopted a son and made a living as a street-food vendor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u200bIn 1991, as South Korea was emerging from military rule, some of the women who were enslaved by Japan <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/10\/21\/obituaries\/kim-hak-soon-overlooked.html\" title=\"\">broke decades of silence<\/a> to talk about what they had gone through during World War II. Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were mobilized to work in the front line brothels, where they were raped by several Japanese soldiers every day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Gil decided to come forward after watching former comfort women protest\u200b in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on TV in 1998. Since then, she attended weekly protest rallies there and traveled around the world, testifying at international conferences and collecting signatures supporting\u200b the women\u2019s demand that Japan atone and apologize for its colonial past.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The controversy surrounding comfort women remains the most emotionally charged historical dispute that divides South Korea and Japan, the United States\u2019 two most important allies in East Asia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Tokyo insists that it has apologized enough and that all claims arising from its colonial rule were settled under a treaty re-establishing diplomatic ties between the two nations in 1965. But the women say that their\u200b grievances were not properly addressed in the treaty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Until South Korea rallied behind the women in the 1990s, female victims of sexual violence were left to live in shame and silence rather than seek redress. When young reporters asked her about her past, Ms. Gil often \u200bcalled her experience \u201cthe worst humiliation a woman could possibly suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u200bShe said her love of singing helped sustain her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen I was lonely and felt empty at heart, I always sang songs to myself,\u201d Ms. Gil said in 2017, when she released an album.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Rev. Jeong Seok-won, who led Ms. Gil\u2019s funeral service, said her life \u200bin South Korea was akin to that of a rape victim who had to constantly move to different places to avoid being shamed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBut she decided to expose her own pain so that it will not be repeated,\u201d he said, according to the national news agency Yonhap. \u201cShe overcame her painful past to lead a great life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/18\/world\/asia\/korea-comfort-women-advocate-obituary.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gil Won-ok, one of the last survivors of sexual slavery in brothels for Japan\u2019s World War II troops, who campaigned to bring international attention to the suffering of thousands of women like her\u200b, died this week at her home. She was 96. Ms. Gil\u2019s death at her home in Incheon, west of Seoul, on Sunday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/18\/multimedia\/18-SKorea-Obit-01-qphf\/18-SKorea-Obit-01-qphf-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22099,163460,137233,16,40061,187842,92,2412,1517,124842,5150,99377,1512,17710,170053,64681],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241399,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241397\/revisions\/241399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}