Professor ordered to compensate sex slavery victims

By KH디지털2

Published : Jan. 13, 2016 - 16:20

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A South Korean court Wednesday ordered a university professor to compensate the nation’s aging sex slavery victims who were forced to work for the Japanese military during World War II, for publishing a book that allegedly contained false information about the women.

Park Yu-ha, a professor at Sejong University, has been ordered to pay a total of 90 million won ($74,719) -- 10 million for each of the nine surviving victims who filed the suit against her last year -- in compensation.

In her controversial book published in 2013, titled “Comfort Women of the Empire,” Park argued that some of the Korean “comfort women” were lured or trafficked to work as sex workers for the Japanese military by Korean collaborators and private Japanese recruiters, who mostly approached financially struggling young women in need of jobs.

Kang Il-chul, one of the plaintiffs, react to the court’s sentence on professor Park Yu-ha at the Dongbu District Court in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

She also argued that some of the women fell in love with Japanese soldiers while being enslaved, while some of them supported the Japanese military.

In 2014, the nine surviving victims filed a compensation suit against Park, asking the court to ban the book from being sold and promoted. They also asked the court to order Park to pay 270 million won -- 30 million won for each of the victims -- in compensation for defamation.

In February last year, the court ordered Park to delete a total of 34 sections in the book which "defamed" the surviving victims. The original version of the book had been banned from being sold since then.

The professor, who attended college in Japan and received her Ph.D. in Japanese literature from Waseda University, has been claiming that she had no reason to defame the surviving victims, and that she wanted to give a more nuanced analysis of the particular history.

Park is also on trial on the criminal charge of defaming the victims. The first hearing is scheduled for Jan. 20.

Last month, a total of 194 scholars and writers, including author Jang Jung-il and Yonsei University professor Kim Chul, released a statement criticizing the judiciary, claiming the indictment of the professor violates the freedom of speech.

By Claire Lee (dyc@heraldcorp.com)

Professor ordered to compensate sex slavery victims

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