Civic groups call for UNESCO listing of comfort women documents

A group of civic organizations from eight countries, including South Korea and China, have urged UNESCO to expedite its long-standing efforts to include documents regarding Japan's wartime sexual abuse of women in its Memory of the World Register. In May 2016, these groups submitted an official request for the UNESCO listing of records related to women, predominantly Koreans, who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese forces during World War II.

The documents, titled "Voices of the Comfort Women," consist of victims' testimonies and related materials. The number of surviving comfort women has been dwindling, with only five still in South Korea, six in China, five in the Philippines, approximately 20 in Indonesia, and one in Timor-Leste, according to the civic groups. The listing process has been on hold since UNESCO's International Advisory Committee chose in 2017 to encourage dialogue between the coalition and four other groups, originating from Japan and the United States, which had separately submitted records on the same matter. The first discussions took place recently.