Former sex slave wants Korean citizenship as last wish

Scores of protesters gathered in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul Wednesday for their weekly protest to demand an official apology and compensation from Japan for forcing women into sexual slavery during World War II.

One of the participants was a 90-year-old woman named Roh Su-bok, who said "Very, very bad" in Thai.

Roh was just 21 when she was kidnapped by Japanese soldiers in Busan while washing clothes by a stream. Without being able to say farewell to her family, she was sent to Singapore and Thailand and then forced to provide sexual services for Japanese soldiers.

While being held in a U.N. POW camp in 1945 after Japan`s surrender, she decided to escape from the camp fearing that she could die there. She fled to Ipoh, Malaysia, and then to the southern Thai city of Hat Yai, where she has since stayed.

She neither had money nor could speak Thai, so all she could do was laundry work and wash dishes at restaurants. She met a Chinese man there and married him but soon realized that she could not have a baby perhaps due to the side effects of being a sex slave in World War II.

Roh had no children, and when her husband passed away, she lived with his nephews. Economically distressed, she could only dream of returning to Korea. She even forgot how to speak Korean, with the only Korean words she could say being “Hello” and the address of her hometown.

Lee Han-ju at the association of ethnic Korean residents in Phuket, who has been supporting Roh since 2003, said, “Roh has never once forgotten (Korean) Independence Day on Aug. 15 though she doesn’t remember her own birthday. I`ve been congratulating her every August 15 as if it were her birthday."

Roh spent her birthday this year in Korea thanks to an invitation from the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan on the occasion of the 66th anniversary of Korean liberation. The council first met her in 1988 and helped her visit Korea in 1984 and 1991.

Recovering Korean nationality has been Roh’s lifetime dream. She has lived as a Chinese and used a Chinese passport when she recently visited Korea.

In accompanying Roh in her visit to Korea for interpretation, Lee said, “During my visit here, I`ll do my best to help her acquire Korean citizenship so that she can live the rest of her life under the protection of the Korean government.”

Roh will visit the National Assembly Thursday to meet Choi Young-hee, chairman of the Gender Equality and Family Committee, and visit her hometown Andong in North Gyeongsang Province and Busan Sunday and Monday before returning to Thailand Wednesday next week.

jhk85@donga.com