SEOUL, South Korea – A South Korean court on Friday ordered Japan to financially compensate 12 South Korean women forced to work as sex slaves by Japanese troops during World War II, the first such ruling that hopes to rekindle animosity among Asian neighbors.
Japan immediately protested the ruling, claiming that all compensation problems during the war were resolved under a 1965 treaty that normalized its ties.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled that the Japanese government should give $ 91,360 each to the 12 women who filed lawsuits in 2013 for their sexual slavery during the war.
The court said Japan’s mobilization of these women as sex slaves was “a crime against humanity.” He said the mobilization came when Japan “illegally occupied” the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945 so that its sovereign immunity could not protect it from demands in South Korea.
The court said the women were victims of “harsh sexual activities” by Japanese troops, which caused bodily harm, sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies and left “great mental scars” on women’s lives.
Observers say Japan is unlikely to comply with South Korea’s ruling. A support group for Korean women said it could take legal action to freeze Japanese government assets in South Korea if Japan refuses to compensate women.
Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that its Deputy Foreign Minister Takeo Akiba summoned South Korean Ambassador Nam Gwan-pyo to register his protest against the ruling.
The verdict comes as South Korea tries to repair ties with Japan over the history and trade of the war, since the departure of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who many South Koreans believe tried to analyze Japan’s colonial abuses.
Bilateral disputes erupted following a 2018 ruling by South Korea’s Supreme Court calling on Japanese companies to offer reparations to South Korean plaintiffs aged for their forced war work. The dispute turned into a trade war that saw the two countries downgrade each other’s trade status, and then moved on to military issues when Seoul threatened to end a military intelligence-sharing deal. 2016 with Tokyo.