Can the Japan-Korea Dispute on “Comfort Women” be Resolved?

About 80 percent of the estimated 70.000-200.000 comfort women Japan took by coercion from 1932-1945 were Korean. The Japanese government claims that the 1965 Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) Normalization Treaty is the authority to support its argument that the comfort women do not have a claim at international law but they were not even mentioned in it. The issue was long neglected for pragmatic reasons. When Korean women raised the issue around 1990 and the former comfort woman Kim Hak-sun came out in 1991, it emerged as a point of dispute. Japan has given no official apology to the victims. Museums in Seoul and Tokyo focus on victims’ sufferings enhancing understanding. The feeling of guilt regarding an unresolved issue should be enhanced among visitors. Only time will tell if the 70th anniversary of World War II and the 50th anniversary of the Normalization Treaty in 2015 will become an opportunity to resolve the issue.