The "comfort women" issue has emerged as the single most divisive aspect in Japan’s wartime past. One action group in South Korea, the epicenter of the issue, has played an outsized role in bringing the dispute to the forefront of international awareness.
This group is the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan. This council was formed through 16 groups related to women’s issues in South Korea in November 1990 as the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, and in 2016, it effectively merged with its affiliate, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance, giving the organization its current form.
Yet the group is now being rocked by its own internal strife. The problem began on May 7, when former comfort woman Lee Yong-soo spoke out, saying that she and other comfort women had been fooled and used by the council. Lee Yong-soo, along with Kim Bok-dong, who died in January last year, were the most active in working with the council’s activities, among the few elderly surviving women who suffered under Japan's wartime military brothel system.