S. Korean appellate court orders Japan to compensate WWII sex slavery victims

A South Korean appellate court on Thursday ordered the Japanese government to pay compensation to the South Korean sex slavery victims during World War II.

The Seoul High Court ruled that Tokyo should pay 200 million won (about $154,000) in compensation to each of the 16 plaintiffs, including sex slavery victims and their bereaved families, overturning a lower court's ruling.

In April 2021, the lower court dismissed the damages suit filed by the plaintiffs in December 2016, citing a sovereign immunity that allows a state to be immune from a civil suit in foreign courts.

However, the appellate court said it would be reasonable under customary international law to recognize the jurisdiction of the South Korean court over the defendant Japanese government.

"It is reasonable to consider that there is a common international law which does not recognize state immunity for an illegal act ... regardless of whether the act was a sovereign act," the appellate court said in a statement.

It noted that Japan should pay appropriate compensation to the victims given the defendant's illegal acts in the process of mobilizing the "comfort women," a euphemism for the victims who were forced into sexual slavery for Imperial Japan's military brothels under the 1910-1945 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula.

Lee Yong-soo, a 95-year-old activist and victim who also filed the suit, welcomed the decision and tearfully thanked the court for the decision.

"I'm grateful. I'm really grateful," she said as she exited the courthouse, adding that she wished she was able to share the news and gratitude with some other victims who had passed away.

However, Japan insists that it has no obligation to comply with the South Korean court's ruling.

Historians say hundreds of thousands of Asian women, mostly from China and the Korean Peninsula, were kidnapped, coerced or duped into sexual servitude for Japanese troops before and during the Pacific War.

(With input from agencies)