Sex-slave statue protesters keep unending vigil

Volunteers brave cold and insults to send message on ‘comfort women’ symbol

Every night they sleep above cold concrete, curled up in sleeping bags on rubber mattresses in a tent made of plastic sheets held together with tape. Their heads are inches away from cars zooming by — and from a bronze statue of a young girl that sits across from the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

Most of the protesters are not much older than the girl the statue depicts. It represents thousands of women enslaved for sex by Japan’s imperial forces before and during World War II.

In recent days Tokyo has called back its ambassador to South Korea over another similar statue newly erected near the Japanese consulate in the southern port city of Busan, and a Buddhist monk has died after setting himself ablaze in protest of a 2015 agreement between the neighborsthat was meant to settle, supposedly for good, the sex slave dispute.

The settlement included a cash payment for the dwindling number of victims, who are often described as “comfort women”, but there was no clear language about the statue.

Tokyo believes an understanding to remove the statue exists, but Seoul says its powers are limited on dealing with a private monument.

The volunteers in the tent don’t trust their government and are determined to protect the statue, even in temperatures that can dip well below freezing.

Choi Hye-ryeon, a 23-year-old college student, said: “We want to create discomfort. We want Japan to see us here and think, ‘This is not over,’ and we want the South Korean government to know that we will never let them remove the statue.”

The protesters in front of the Japanese Embassy began camping out two days after the agreement on sex slaves was announced on Dec 28. They want Tokyo to accept full legal responsibility for the sexual slavery, acknowledging it as a war crime, punishing those involved and providing formal compensation to victims.

We want the South Korean government to know that we will never let them remove the statue.” Choi Hye-ryeon, college student

The volunteers chat with visitors, who often bring them food and small presents like knitted scarves and instant hand warmers. But not everyone is friendly.

Right-wing supporters of the agreement’ s co-architect, South Korean President Park Geun-hye, occasionally shout insults. Choi says a man once told her he wanted to stab her.

Still, she says conditions were worse early in the protest, when police barred them from even having a tent. Now they at least have a shelter.