The term “comfort women” refers to the women and girls, most of them Korean, who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese military from the early 1930s through the end of World War II. Estimates of the total number of victims across occupied Asia run as high as 200,000. For the comfort women in Korea, the legal fight over Japan’s responsibility has moved through diplomatic treaties, government apologies, private and public compensation funds, and domestic court judgments, and it is still not settled. Only a handful of registered Korean survivors are still alive.
What Happened
The Japanese military ran a network of sexual slavery stations across occupied territories in China, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Women were recruited through false promises of factory or hospital work, and others were taken by military police. Most came from the Korean Peninsula, then under Japanese colonial rule.
In a 1993 statement issued by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, the Japanese government acknowledged that “the then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women” and that recruitment was “conducted generally against their will, through coaxing, coercion, etc.”1Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary Survivors were left with lasting physical injuries and psychological trauma, and stigma kept most of them silent for decades. Korean women only began coming forward publicly in the early 1990s.
Why the 1965 Treaty Still Controls the Argument
South Korea and Japan restored diplomatic relations through the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations, which included a separate Agreement on the Settlement of Problems concerning Property and Claims. Japan provided South Korea with $300 million in grants and $200 million in low-interest loans, with an additional $300 million or more anticipated in private commercial credits.2United Nations Treaty Collection. Agreement on the Settlement of Problems concerning Property and Claims – No. 8473
Article II of the claims agreement stated that all problems “concerning property, rights and interests” of the two countries and their nationals were “settled completely and finally.”2United Nations Treaty Collection. Agreement on the Settlement of Problems concerning Property and Claims – No. 8473 Japan has relied on this language ever since to argue that all individual claims from the colonial period, including those of comfort women, were extinguished.
The South Korean government spent the 1965 money largely on national infrastructure and industrial development. Individual victims received nothing directly. Survivors and their advocates have long argued that a government-to-government deal, negotiated without the victims’ knowledge or consent, could not extinguish the right of individuals to seek justice for what was done to their bodies. That disagreement over what the treaty actually settled is still the root of nearly every legal battle that follows.
Japan’s Apologies and Compensation Programs
The Kono Statement
The 1993 Kono Statement acknowledged military involvement in the comfort station system, admitted recruitment was carried out against the women’s will, and extended “sincere apologies and remorse.”1Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary It remains the most direct acknowledgment by a Japanese government official of state involvement in the system.
The Asian Women’s Fund
In 1995, Japan established the Asian Women’s Fund. Each recipient was offered 2 million yen in “atonement money” raised from private donations, together with government-funded medical and welfare support of 3 million yen per person in South Korea and Taiwan, for 5 million yen total. In all, 285 former comfort women accepted payments, including 61 in South Korea. The fund dissolved in March 2007.3Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Measures Taken by the Government of Japan on the Issue of Comfort Women
Many Korean survivors and advocacy groups refused the fund. The central objection was that the atonement payments came from private donations rather than the Japanese government’s own budget, which critics saw as a way to express moral sympathy while denying legal responsibility.
The 2015 Bilateral Agreement
In December 2015, the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan announced a new deal. Japan’s prime minister expressed “sincere apology and remorse” through his foreign minister, and Japan committed 1 billion yen (roughly $8.3 million at the time) from government funds to a new foundation.4Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan. Reply of the Government of Japan to the Letter Sent by the Special Rapporteur Unlike the Asian Women’s Fund, the money came directly from the Japanese government. The Obama administration welcomed the deal as a step that would “promote healing and help to improve relations between two of the United States’ most important allies.”5U.S. Department of State Archive. Resolution of the Comfort Women Issue
The resulting Reconciliation and Healing Foundation distributed roughly 4.4 billion won to 34 living survivors and the families of 58 deceased victims. Both governments called the deal “irreversible.” But it had been negotiated without consulting the survivors or the advocacy organizations that represented them, and public opposition in South Korea was intense. A new South Korean administration concluded the agreement did not adequately reflect the victims’ needs and formally dissolved the foundation in 2019, halting distribution of the remaining Japanese funds.
South Korean Courts and Sovereign Immunity
Under the international doctrine of sovereign immunity, one country’s courts generally cannot exercise jurisdiction over another sovereign state. For decades this blocked Korean survivors from suing Japan in Korean courts. Japan refused to appear in any such proceedings.
That changed in January 2021, when the Seoul Central District Court ordered Japan to pay 100 million won (about $91,000) to each of 12 surviving victims. The court held that sovereign immunity cannot shield a state from accountability for systematic human rights violations committed on the territory of the Korean Peninsula during an illegal occupation. Japan boycotted the proceedings and refused to recognize the judgment. Three months later, a different panel of the same court dismissed a separate comfort women lawsuit on sovereign immunity grounds, leaving genuine legal uncertainty about whether the January ruling represented a new standard.
In November 2023, the Seoul High Court upheld a judgment ordering Japan to compensate 16 plaintiffs, awarding 200 million won (roughly $154,000) each. Japan declined to appeal, so the ruling became final, though Japan continued to reject it as a violation of international law. Actually enforcing these judgments is a separate problem. Japan holds assets in South Korea, but seizing sovereign property to satisfy the awards would escalate the dispute further than either government has been willing to go.
International Legal Responses
Two United Nations reports shaped the international framing of the issue. In 1996, Special Rapporteur Radhika Coomaraswamy concluded that the Japanese Imperial Army “initiated, regulated and controlled the vast network of comfort stations” and that Japan bore continuing legal responsibility. Her report stated that existing treaties between Japan and Korea did not cover the claims of former military sexual slaves, and recommended that Japan acknowledge its violations of international law, pay compensation to individual victims, and identify perpetrators.6University of Minnesota Human Rights Library. Report on Mission to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea and Japan on the Issue of Military Sexual Slavery in Wartime A 1998 follow-up report by Special Rapporteur Gay J. McDougall characterized the stations as sites of sexual slavery under international humanitarian law.7Refworld. Systematic Rape, Sexual Slavery and Slavery-like Practices During Armed Conflict – Final Report Japan rejected the findings of both.
In July 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 121, calling on Japan to “formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner” for the comfort women system, which it described as “one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century.”8U.S. Congress. Text – H.Res.121 – 110th Congress (2007-2008) The resolution was non-binding.
Survivors also tried the U.S. courts. In Hwang Geum Joo v. Japan, filed in 2000, former comfort women sought damages against the Japanese government. The D.C. Circuit dismissed the case in 2003, ruling that Japan was entitled to sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, that the Act’s commercial activity exception did not apply retroactively to wartime conduct, and that violations of fundamental international norms did not amount to an implied waiver of immunity.9FindLaw. Hwang Geum Joo v. Japan (2003) The Supreme Court declined to hear the case, closing the American judicial route.
Support for Survivors Under South Korean Law
Separate from the disputes with Japan, South Korea maintains its own support framework for surviving comfort women. The Act on Protection, Support and Commemorative Projects for Sexual Slavery Victims for the Japanese Imperial Army provides direct assistance funded through the national budget.10Korea Legislation Research Institute. Act on Protection, Support and Commemorative Projects for Sexual Slavery Victims for the Japanese Imperial Army
Registered survivors receive a monthly living stability subsidy, full medical coverage, specialized nursing care, housing support that includes repair subsidies and priority access to public rental housing, and funeral cost assistance.10Korea Legislation Research Institute. Act on Protection, Support and Commemorative Projects for Sexual Slavery Victims for the Japanese Imperial Army The act also authorizes commemorative projects, including historical archives and public education programs. With the number of living registered survivors now in the single digits, those commemorative and educational mandates are becoming the law’s most consequential provisions.
Where Things Stand
The dispute sits in an uncomfortable equilibrium. South Korean courts have issued enforceable judgments Japan refuses to recognize. The 2015 agreement was abandoned by the very government it was supposed to bind. The 1965 treaty remains Japan’s legal anchor, but Korean courts have begun to carve out exceptions for grave human rights violations. Whether any new mechanism can address the comfort women issue in a way survivors accept remains an open question, and time to answer it is running out.