South Korean activists are complicating President Park Geun-hye's tentative steps to improve ties with Japan by turning to the courts to seek recognition that they were forced during colonial times to work for Japanese companies, used as "comfort women" in military brothels or suffered after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
A South Korean court Wednesday ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to pay five South Koreans compensation for forced labor prior to Japan's defeat in the war. A planned appeal could take the case to the South Korean Supreme Court, where two similar cases are pending.
Further muddying the issue is a threat this week by women forced into sexual servitude to file a suit against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the United States. Japan euphemistically refers to the women as the ianfu, or comfort women.