Animation shows Japan coerced women into sex slavery

Professor Seo Kyoung-duk said Tuesday that he distributed an animated advertisement on Facebook that criticized Japanese leader Shinzo Abe for his recent remarks denying forceful nature of the country’s sexual slavery of Korean women during World War II.

“Abe has restarted a distortion of history. Alerting the whole world of such an attempt, and pressuring Abe via public opinion, is important in preventing (Abe) from twisting history,” said Seo, a local professor.

The 45-second video advertisement shows comments by former Dutch foreign minister Frans Timmermans and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying that acknowledge the forced nature of the victims euphemistically called “comfort women." The images are contrasted against Abe‘s statement that the claims of coerced sexual slavery by Japan is “groundless slander.”

The Abe administration Friday submitted a report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women that claimed that there is no evidence proving the “forceful taking away” of the victims into sexual servitude for the Japanese soldiers. The claim was echoed by Abe last month, who added that it was a “slander” to call the comfort women “sexual slaves.”

Seoul on Sunday rebuked Japan’s denial of the comfort women being forced into sexual slavery, saying that it is an “indisputable historical fact” that there had been coercion in the comfort women‘s mobilization.

Korea and Japan on Dec. 28 reached what they called a “final and irreversible” agreement over the comfort women issue, which included Tokyo providing 1 billion yen ($8.3 million) for a foundation for the victims and an apology. The deal, however, was denounced by surviving comfort women and civil groups here for failing to recognize Japan’s legal responsibility.

Japanese lawmakers’ demand to Abe last month to remove a bronze statue of a girl -- symbolizing the comfort women -- installed in the vicinity of the Japanese Embassy here had caused further furor, after news outlets in Tokyo had claimed that Korea gave a “positive reaction” to potentially moving the statue.

A group of Korean university students have been staging an outdoor sit-in demonstration in front of the statue for 35 consecutive days since Dec. 30, guarding the statue.

Seo’s advertisement has been linked by Twitter accounts of news outlets of 194 countries across the world. The full video can be seen at http://is.gd/ySDVDx.

(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)