▲ Seo Min-jung (C), director general for Asia and Pacific affairs at Seoul's foreign ministry, speaks to reporters on the issue of compensating South Korean wartime forced labor in Seoul on April 13, 2023. (Yonhap)

forced labor-compensations

Families of 10 victims of Japan's forced labor agree to receive compensation from gov't fund

SEOUL, April 13 (Yonhap) -- Bereaved families of 10 out of the 15 South Korean wartime forced labor victims who won their legal battles against Japanese companies have agreed to collect their compensation through Seoul's third-party reimbursement plan, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

In March, the government announced a plan to compensate Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor through a state fund collected from local companies, without Japan's contributions.

Families of the 10 plaintiffs who won their compensation suits against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corp. at the Supreme Court in 2018 have agreed to receive the money through the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization under the interior ministry, Seo Min-jung, director general for Asia and Pacific affairs at the ministry, told reporters.

Only three of the 15 plaintiffs remain alive, with the bereaved families of the others legally representing the cases.

Seoul's compensation plan had triggered a strong backlash at home, because Japanese companies are excluded from making payments to the victims.

Tokyo has maintained that all reparation issues related to the 1910-45 colonization of Korea were settled in the 1965 deal to normalize bilateral diplomatic ties.

The plan was announced after several rounds of working-level diplomatic talks on the issue following the launch of the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration in May last year.

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