The 1,001st Wednesday Protest calling for the Japanese government’s apology and compensation for “comfort women” forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military took place in front of the Japanese Embassy in downtown Seoul.

Two victims, Kim Bok-dong and Kil Won-ok, joined about 100 participants in the rally despite the cold weather.

“We are starting all over again,” said Kim Dong-hee, an official of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which organizes the protest. “Our struggle will continue until we get the answer.”

The event drew great public attention last Wednesday during its 1,000th gathering, the longest single-themed protest anywhere in the world. President Lee Myung-bak last weekend visited Japan and called on Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to resolve the issue.

The Japanese administration, however, has insisted that all issues related to its colonial rule of Korea were settled by the 1965 Korea-Japan Agreement, under which Japan provided financial aid to Korea.

The Korean American Voter’s Council said Wednesday that New York state Sen. Tony Avella has written a letter to the Japanese government to take responsibility in tackling the comfort women issue.

He said he had attended the commemoration of the 1,000th Wednesday Protest at Queensborough Community College in New York and found that the comfort women system was one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century.

“I was moved by the courage of these women who offered testimony on the horrible war crimes committed upon them as young girls. However, I found it extremely disappointing that the Japanese government has yet to offer an apology to these women.

“Even worse, to date, the Japanese government refused to acknowledge the existence of the ‘comfort women’ by claiming that the comfort system never existed,” he wrote.

“As you should be aware, German Chancellor, Angela Merkel publicly delivered a strong message of her country’s ‘holocaust shame’ in 2008 and stated, ‘I bow my head before the survivors and I bow my head before you in tribute to the fact that you were able to survive.”

Avella urged the Japanese government to change its stance.

“I call upon the Japanese government to do what is right by accepting historical responsibility for the crime against humanity committed through the comfort women system,” he wrote.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)