"When the police beat us up, nobody could stop them. They hit us with their leather belts everywhere...I was no longer able to give birth because of it…[this is] the most tragic thing that had happened until now. I was so angry that I lost any opportunity to have a baby because of the Japanese… "
-Oksun Lee (90)
In response to the demand for an apology from the Japanese government by South Korean protesters, the Japanese government and its Korean counterpart cooperated and reached a deal on the comfort women issue. The 2015 Tokyo-Seoul Agreement gave $8.7 million in reparation to the South Korean comfort women and a formal apology from Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan. To the South Koreans and the comfort women, this was insufficient to accommodate the traumatic experiences of the young girls being kidnapped and raped by the Japanese soldiers countless times. Thus, the comfort women issue is left unresolved and intact by many South Koreans, and there are still protests being held in many public places in an attempt to resolve the issue.
by Julia Nam