The Statue of Peace, also often called Sonyeosang in Korean pronunciation or Comfort Woman Statue, is a symbol of the victims of sexual slavery, known as comfort women by the Japanese military during the period of the Manchurian incident until the end of Pacific war that took place in World War II. The Statue of Peace was erected to call for apology and remembrance.
History
The Wednesday demonstration started in 1992 and, nearly 20 years later, the idea for the Statue of Peace was proposed by the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. More specifically, the council proposed that a memorial stone be erected in front of the Embassy of Japan in Seoul to commemorate the pain of comfort women as the victims of sexual slavery by the Japanese imperial military. This proposal was realized on 14 December 2011, when the bronze statue was installed in front of the embassy. Yeongjong Kim, who was head of Jongno-gu, provided design ideas and works of art in the form of a girl instead of a memorial stone. The Statue of Peace was designed by the couple Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Eun-sung. The statue depicts a girl dressed in a chima jeogori, with small hands and short hair, sitting and staring at the Embassy of Japan in central Seoul. Japan has repeatedly demanded that the statue be removed, but Seoul and especially the victims have rejected such demands consistently arguing that the Japanese government has never officially admitted its direct involvement of the military with regards to the comfort women issue. However, the Japanese Government did admit to that in 1992. Until now in South Korea, since the Statue of Peace has not been designated as public sculpture it was hard to intensely supervise damaging the statue, but on 30th June 2017, the civil congress of Busan, South Korea, made the legal foundation to protect the Statue of Peace by passing the relative ordinance. By reason of this, it has become difficult to shift the site or demolish the statue.
Other statues inspired by the Statue of Peace
The issue of comfort women and the Statue of Peace has inspired other such statues to be built in Seoul and in cities around the world with sizable Korean populations. In May 2012, officials in the borough of Palisades Park in Bergen County, New Jersey, rejected requests by two diplomatic delegations from Japan to remove a small monument from a public park, a brass plaque on a block of stone, dedicated in 2010 to the memory of so-called comfort women, tens of thousands of women and girls, many Korean, who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II. Days later, a South Korean delegation endorsed the borough's decision. However, in neighboring Fort Lee, New Jersey, various Korean American groups could not reach consensus on the design and wording for such a monument as of early April 2013. In October 2012, a similar memorial was announced in nearby Hackensack, New Jersey, to be raised behind the Bergen County Courthouse, alongside memorials to the Holocaust, the Great Irish Famine, Slavery in the United States and the Armenian Genocide, and was unveiled in March 2013. An apology and monetary compensation of roughly US$8 million by Japan to South Korea in December 2015 for these transgressions largely fell flat in Bergen County, where the first U.S. monument to pay respects to comfort women was erected. However, the controversial Japanese comfort women foundation which was launched to July 2016 to finance this settlement was shut down by South Korea on November 21, 2018, effectively bringing an end to the 2015 agreement.
Diplomatic incident with Japan
In December 2015, Japan stated that it would not pay ¥1 billion as compensation unless the statue was removed from its location in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul. An agreement was reached in 2015. Afterwards, a second statue was erected in Busan. Japan then recalled two diplomats from South Korea and halted high-level talks. South Korea also terminated the 2015 agreement on November 21, 2018 and effectively shut down the Japanese-funded comfort women foundation which was set up to pay the agreed settlement.
