South Korea court convicts lawmaker for embezzling 'comfort women' activist group funds

Last week, a court in South Korea convicted a lawmaker for embezzling the funds of an activist group for the surviving “comfort women” in the country. However, the lawmaker was cleared of the other charges made against them.

The Seoul Western District Court on Friday last week convicted lawmaker Yoon Hee-myang for embezzling at least ₩17 million during her time as the activist group leader. Yoon was indicted in 2020 on charges of fraud and embezzlement during her time as the leader of the group acting on behalf of the surviving victims of sexual exploitation by Japan during its colonization of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. The court cleared Yoon of all other charges and ordered Yoon to pay the fine of ₩15 million.

Other charges against Yoon included illegally receiving government subsidies and coaxing a victim in poor health to donate her fortune to the group. Yoon’s case threatened to damage the campaign of the surviving victims. Prosecutors called for a five-year imprisonment for Yoon, which would have forced her to give up her seat in parliament.

“The organization runs on the money from ordinary people…but the defendant failed to meet expectations,” said the court in its verdict, according to South Korea’s News1 outlet. Yoon apologized for the controversy but denied the charges.

Relations between Japan and South Korea have been frayed for decades due to the wartime issues such as forced labor and sexual exploitation.

On Tuesday last week, the Seoul central district court ordered the South Korean government to pay compensation for a Vietnamese victim of atrocities committed by South Korean troops during the Vietnam war back in the 1970s when around 300,000 South Korean troops fought alongside US forces. The court ordered the government to pay about ₩30 million in compensation and additional funds for the delay to Nguyen Thi Thanh, a survivor of the killings of Vietnamese civilians by South Korean troops.

Nguyen filed a lawsuit against the South Korean government back in 2020 seeking compensation, saying she lost her family members and also suffered wounds herself when South Korean marines killed around 70 civilians in her hometown of Quang Nam in central Vietnam back in 1968.