Seventy years after the end of World War II, a 90-year-old South Korean who was convicted of war crimes continues to seek justice and compensation from the Japanese government.

As a young boy, Lee Hak-rae helped with his family's farming work on the Korean Peninsula during Japan's colonial rule. In June 1942, when Lee was 17, he was told by the head of his village, in what is now the southern part of South Korea, to work for the Imperial Japanese military under a two-year contract with a monthly pay of ¥50.

After receiving training in Busan, Lee was sent to a prisoner of war camp in Thailand to serve as a guard. The Japanese army was using POWs to build the Thai-Burma Railway, and Lee had never heard of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of POWs.