S. Korea to build comfort women museum in Seoul

SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Gender Equality Minister Chung Huyn-back said Monday the government plans to set up a museum for Korean victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery in Seoul, in an apparent show of the new Moon Jae-in government's resolve to sternly deal with Japan's wartime human rights violation.

"The government plans to build the museum for the comfort women in a place easily accessible so that it can play a role as a mecca for people to remember and recall the human rights violations that the war brought," the minister said.

Comfort women is a euphemism for Asian women, mostly Koreans, who were forcibly taken to front-line military brothels to serve the Japanese army during World War II.

Chung made the remarks during a visit to the House of Sharing, a shelter for the former sex slaves, in Gwangju, east of Seoul. The visit was her first on-site activity as minister since her inauguration late last week.

The comfort women question no longer remains an issue just in South Korea, the minister said, adding it is now an international one.

It's hoped that the museum will be erected near the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan, the eastern part of Seoul, the minister said, adding that the government plans to immediately start the work by securing a lot for it first."
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