On January 14, 1992, Japanese Chief Government Spokesman Koichi Kato issued an official apology saying, “We cannot deny that the previous Japanese army played a role” in abducting and detaining the “comfort ladies,” and “We might like to express our apologies and contrition”. Initially, the Japanese government denied any involvement in the comfort ladies system, until Yoshimi Yoshiaki discovered and revealed documents from the Japanese Self-Defense Agency’s library that prompt direct navy involvement. In 1992, paperwork which had been stored since 1958 after they were returned by United States troops and which indicated that the navy had played a large position in working what were euphemistically known as “consolation stations” have been found in the library of Japan’s Self-Defense Agency. Three days later on January 17, 1992, at a dinner given by South Korean President Roh Tae Woo, the Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa advised his host: “We Japanese ought to at first recall the truth of that tragic interval when Japanese actions inflicted suffering and sorrow upon your individuals. We must always never forget our emotions of remorse over this. As Prime Minister of Japan, I wish to declare anew my remorse at these deeds and tender my apology to the people of the Republic of Korea.” He apologized once more the following day in a speech earlier than South Korea’s National Assembly.
The Filipino information channel ABS-CBN has completed interviews with the surviving lolas to convey awareness to the experience of lolas below the Japanese occupation and to remind people that Japan’s crimes were not committed that long ago and should not be forgotten. In 2004 the Malaya Lolas filed a cause, Vinuya et al. In August 2016, twelve comfort women filed suit against the government of South Korea, declaring that the federal government had nullified the victims’ individual rights to claim damages from Japan by signing an settlement not to demand further legal responsibility with out consulting with the victims themselves. Three South Korean women filed go well with in Japan in December 1991, across the time of the 50th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack, demanding compensation for forced prostitution. In 1951, at first of negotiations, the South Korean government initially demanded $364 million in compensation for Koreans pressured into labor and military service during the Japanese occupation: $200 per survivor, $1,650 per death and $2,000 per injured individual. Japan agreed to pay ¥1 billion (₩9.7 billion; $8.Three million) to a fund supporting surviving victims while South Korea agreed to chorus from criticizing Japan concerning the difficulty and to work to take away a statue memorializing the victims from in entrance of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.
The fund was also used to present an official Japanese narrative about the problem. On February 20, 2014, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga mentioned the Japanese government could reconsider the study and the apology. However, Prime Minister Abe clarified on March 14, 2014, that he had no intention of renouncing or altering it. The announcement got here after Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met his counterpart Yun Byung-se in Seoul, and later Prime Minister Shinzo Abe phoned President Park Geun-hye to repeat an apology already provided by Kishida. On December 28, 2015, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye formally agreed to settle the dispute. Shinzō Abe, the prime minister on the time, stated on March 1, 2007, that there was no proof that the Japanese government had saved sex slaves, although the Japanese government had already admitted the use of coercion in 1993. On March 27 the Japanese parliament issued an official apology. In 2007, the surviving girls needed an apology from the Japanese authorities. The Korean authorities will administer the fund for the forty-six remaining elderly consolation girls and can consider the matter “finally and irreversibly resolved”. However, one Korean news organization, Hankyoreh, said that it fails to incorporate the request from the survivals of sexual slavery to state the Japanese government’s authorized duty for the state-level crime of enforcing a system of sexual slavery.
Several comfort ladies protested the agreement as they declare they did not need money, but to see a sincere acknowledgement of the legal duty by the Japanese authorities. Abe once more expressed his most honest apologies and remorse to all the ladies. He acknowledged that they’d undergone immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as consolation girls. The co-representative of a support group of the surviving girls expressed that the settlement with Japan doesn’t mirror the desire of the comfort girls, they usually vowed to hunt its invalidation by reviewing authorized options. In January 2018, South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in known as the 2015 agreement “undeniable” and said that it “finally and irreversibly” was an official agreement between the 2 countries; however, when referring to facets of the settlement he discovered flawed, he said: “A knot wrongly tied ought to be untied.” These remarks came a day after the government introduced it wouldn’t seek to renew the 2015 settlement, however that it wanted Japan to do more to settle the issue. However, “an examination of the method and content material leading up to the agreement can’t be seen as discharging the plaintiffs’ proper to assert damages.” An legal professional for the survivors said they could be appealing the choice on the basis that it recognizes the lawfulness of the 2015 Japan-South Korean settlement.