DPR Korea >> Japan, Recommendation, 42nd Session, January 2023

Japan stated that it had reached an agreement with the Republic of Korea confirming that the issue of “comfort women” had been finally and irreversibly resolved. In the followup to the agreement, the Government had contributed one billion yen to the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation and had fulfilled all of its commitments under the agreement. The people and the Government had cooperated to establish the Asian Women’s Fund in 1995, through which they had carried out medical and welfare projects and provided atonement money with a letter from the Prime Minister expressing apologies and remorse to each former comfort woman in Asian and other countries, including the Republic of Korea. Japan emphasized that it would lead the world in making the twenty-first century an era in which women’s human rights were not infringed upon. It also emphasized that the term “sex slaves” was contrary to fact and should not be used in that context, which was also confirmed by the Republic of Korea. ... Japan stated that former civilian workers from the Korean Peninsula had indeed flowed to the Japanese mainland in various ways. The work or servicesthey provided through recruitment, official placement and requisition did not constitute forced or compulsory labour under the terms of the ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105). It was inappropriate to describe them as forced or compulsory labour.