Hundreds are gathering near the Japanese Embassy in Seoul for the funeral of a South Korean woman forced as a girl into a brothel and sexually enslaved by the Japanese military in WWII.
The mourners on Friday were surrounded by media as a hearse carrying Kim Bok-dong stopped in front of a bronze statue of a girl representing the thousands of Asian women experts say were forced into front-line brothels by the Japanese.
Kim, who was 92, had been an outspoken advocate for the so-called “comfort women,” the euphemism given to the women by the Japanese and embraced by some of the victims over the term “sex slave.” They have called for reparations from Tokyo and a fuller apology than what Japanese leaders have previously offered.