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| Lee Kyung-ja, a family member of a wartime forced laborer, raises her hands in victory after winning a compensation suit last Dec. 14 against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in an appeals ruling at Gwangju District Court. / Yonhap |
By Lee Suh-yoon
With the country celebrating its centennial of the March 1 Independence Movement, more victims of wartime forced labor during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule are stepping out of the shadows to demand reparations from Japanese firms.
On Tuesday, a Gwangju-based civic group and a local branch office of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, started gathering applications from victims or descendants of victims in Gwangju and South Jeolla Province for a joint lawsuit that will be filed by the end of next month.
"For decades, the victims lived without knowing where to exercise their right to reparations due to the 1965 Korea-Japan diplomatic treaty," Lee Kook-un, head of the NGO for Supporting Female Victims of Enforced Labor by Japan, told The Korea Times, Wednesday. "They were ignored by both national governments (of Korea and Japan), and during the military dictatorship era could not even bring up the subject."
Since announcing their plans to organize and file the public suit, the civic group's office has been swamped with phone inquiries on how to join, Lee said.
Though more than a dozen lawsuits ― representing some 1,000 Korean victims ― have already been filed against Japanese firms for wartime forced labor, many remain unrepresented. Of the 224,000 victims who were forcibly mobilized for Japan's war effort, 68 percent, or 147,000, toiled inside Japanese factories, according to registered figures at a special government support committee for victims.
The number of surviving forced labor victims in the country was 5,245 in February last year, with 121 in Gwangju and 544 in South Jeolla Province, data from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety showed.
Civic groups hope bringing more victims onboard could impose greater accountability from Japan and push through stalled reparation talks with Japanese firms ― most notably Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi, both of which have refused to abide by Oct. 30 and Nov. 29 Supreme Court rulings ordering compensation for victims. Victims have filed for seizure of the companies' assets in Korea. Last month, the lawyers group and civic groups in Seoul gathered forced labor victims of two Japanese firms ― Nippon Steel and Fujikoshi ― for another joint suit that may be filed as early as next week, sources said.
The Japanese government has shown even greater resistance to the reparations order than the firms themselves. Last week, it said it would consider limiting visas for Koreans in Japan if the court goes ahead to liquidate Nippon Steel's assets in Korea.
"The biggest problem is that even the victims who have already won their case in court have still not been compensated," Kim Jung-hee, a lawyer who will represent the new victims from Gwangju and South Jeolla Province, said in a phone interview, Wednesday. "We hope these new lawsuits can also pressure the Japanese government and firms to apologize to victims and pay proper reparations."
