A bust honoring Kang Il-chul, who survived Japanese military sexual slavery and spent decades seeking justice for fellow victims, was unveiled Saturday at the House of Sharing in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province.
Kang, a prominent advocate for victims’ rights, died in March at age 98. Participants laid flowers before the bust and observed a moment of silence in tribute to her life and work.
The unveiling was part of a ceremony held ahead of Aug. 14, South Korea’s national memorial day honoring victims of Japan’s wartime military sexual slavery.
Held under the theme “Carrying Memory Forward,” the event drew about 300 people, including Gyeonggi Gov. Choo Mi-ae, civic activists and local residents.
The memorial day marks the anniversary of Kim Hak-sun’s landmark testimony in 1991, when she became the first Korean survivor to publicly recount her enslavement by the Japanese military.
Born in Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province, in 1928, Kang was forcibly taken to Manchuria in 1943 at age 16 and subjected to sexual slavery by the Japanese military.
Near the end of World War II, Japanese soldiers locked Kang and other victims inside a building and set it on fire in an attempt to kill them and destroy evidence, according to her account. She survived after being rescued by Korean independence fighters.
Kang later depicted the attempted mass killing in “Burning Women,” a painting that became one of the most widely recognized visual accounts of the suffering inflicted on victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery.
Unable to return home after Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945, Kang remained in China until 2000, when she regained her South Korean citizenship and returned permanently.
In December that year, she testified before the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery in Tokyo, recounting her ordeal and drawing international attention to the atrocities committed by the Japanese military.
After settling at the House of Sharing, Kang continued her advocacy at home and abroad. She spoke at Harvard Law School and in New York and Washington, and met with White House and US State Department officials to press Japan for an official apology and legal compensation.
Kang devoted the rest of her life to preserving the victims’ history and campaigning for peace and women’s rights.
dagyumji@heraldcorp.com