South Korea and Japan agreed [press release] on Monday to a final resolution on the issue of “comfort women” [BBC backgrounder] who were forced to work in Japanese brothels during World War II. Japan’s Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida admitted responsibility on behalf of the Japanese government and pledged one billion yen to a fund to help the families of those who suffered. Roughly 200,000 women were forced [BBC report] to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during WWII. Many of these women were Korean, though others came from China, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan. Kishida spoke for Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and said he expressed [CNN report] his “most sincere apologies and remorse to all the women who underwent immeasurable and painful experiences and suffered incurable physical and psychological wounds as comfort women.” In response to this agreement, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se has stated [Reuters report] that the matter is “finally and irreversibly resolved,” and the South Korean government will no longer raise the issue on the international stage. Advocates for former comfort women called the agreement a “humiliation” as the agreement did not specify anything on preventative initiatives such as truth seeking and history education.

The dispute was also “settled” in 1965 when over $800 million in aid and loans were given to South Korea and diplomatic relations were declared “normalized.” However, until now the Japenese government has not directly acknowledged what happened or their part in it. In 2012, the Tokyo District Court [official website, in Japanese] ruled [JURIST report] that the Japanese government must disclose part of a 1965 treaty between Japan and South Korea regarding “comfort women.” In 1995, Japan helped establish the Asian Women’s Fund which funds and provides assistance to former comfort women. In 2009 North Korea urged Japan’s government to apologize [JURIST report] for its use of comfort women during World War II. In July 2007 the US House of Representatives passed a resolution [JURIST report] calling on Japan to apologize for its use of comfort women during WWII. Abe dismissed the resolution [JURIST report], claiming it was based on erroneous information [JURIST report] and that the women were professional prostitutes paid for their services. Japan had previously accepted that Japanese soldiers coerced [JURIST report] women into prostitution but denied government involvement.