Sexual slavery victim statue to be unveiled in New York

A statue symbolizing the victims of Japanese wartime sexual slavery will be unveiled in New York this week, a local Korean association said Thursday.

The girl statue will be installed inside the Museum of Korean American Heritage in Manhattan following an unveiling ceremony at the site on Friday.

“We want to look back on our painful history that can never be erased, and ensure that such a tragedy never recurs,” an official of the association said.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work in frontline brothels for Japanese troops during World War II. Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910-45.

The statue will be the fourth of its kind in the United States. The others are in California, Michigan and Georgia.