Lee Ok-seon, voice for comfort women victims, passes away at 97

Lee Ok-seon sits in her room at the House of Sharing in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, in March 2019. The Kyunghyang Shinmun file photo

Lee Ok-seon, a survivor of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement, passed away on May 11. She was 97.

According to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the House of Sharing in Gyeonggi Province, Lee passed away at around 8:05 p.m. at a nursing hospital in Seongnam, southern Seoul. With her passing, only six of the 240 registered victims of sexual slavery by Japan during World War II remain alive. The average age of the remaining survivors is 95.6 years, with four over the age of 96 and two in their early 90s.

Lee was born in 1928 in Busan and spent her childhood there. In 1942, at the age of 14, she was abducted by men believed to be Japanese soldiers and taken to a military brothel in China, where she endured three years of horrific abuse. She bore physical scars from being stabbed by Japanese swords, and suffered long-term damage such as hearing loss and missing teeth from repeated beatings.

After Korea’s liberation, Lee remained in China for decades, returning to Korea only in June 2000, after 58 years. Upon her return, she tried to locate her siblings, only to find they had all passed away. She officially regained Korean citizenship in December 2001 and was registered as a victim of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement. Her delayed citizenship restoration was due in part to the fact that her family had already reported her as deceased.

Despite her advanced age and chronic illnesses, Lee remained active both in Korea and abroad in raising awareness of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military. Known for her articulate speech and strong will to see justice served, she began testifying in 2002 at Brown University in the U.S. and continued to travel to countries like Japan and Australia nearly every year. In 2013, she completed a grueling tour of 12 cities across the U.S., Germany, and Japan. Even at 90, she returned to China to speak about her indescribable hardships. Lee also served as the model for the Statue of Peace in Nam-gu, Gwangju.

Lee was also one of the plaintiffs in a landmark court ruling in a damage lawsuit against the Japanese government in 2021. Along with 11 other survivors, she had filed for mediation in 2013 and later pursued litigation, ultimately winning the case eight years later. The Seoul Central District Court ruled that each plaintiff be awarded 100 million won. At the time, Lee said, “The lawsuit against Japan is to demand a proper apology. It’s not about the money.”

Originally from Busan, Lee lived at the House of Sharing with another survivor, also named Lee Ok-seon, who was from Daegu. The Daegu-born Lee passed away in 2022. Both women emphasized that an official apology and legal compensation from the Japanese government were their final, unresolved wishes. When the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation was established in 2016 as part of an agreement between Korea and Japan, Lee sharply criticized it, saying, “The government took money from Japan and sold us out again.” The government dissolved the foundation in 2019. Lee also lent her voice as the narrator in the 2019 documentary “A Long Way Around,” which portrayed the daily lives of fellow survivors Park Ok-seon, Kang Il-chul, and Bae Chun-hee, whose stories were preserved by the House of Sharing.

Tributes to Lee poured in on social media. The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan said, “Even when her health was poor and she was bedridden, she often said she wanted to attend the Wednesday Demonstrations. We hope she now rests in peace, free from pain.”

Vice Minister Shin Young-sook of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family expressed deep sorrow, saying, “We are heartbroken to bid farewell to yet another survivor of Japan's wartime sexual enslavement. The Ministry will closely monitor and support the remaining survivors to help them live a comfortable life, while continuing to work to restore their honor and dignity.”

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.

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