Seoul City Announces Project Contest for 'Japanese Military Comfort Women Victims Memorial Day' Commemoration Event

Second Year Following Last Year... Online Applications for Subsidy and Gender Equality Fund Projects Open Until the 22nd

On August 14 last year, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, Kim Kyung-ae, Lee Ok-sun, Lee Yong-soo grandmothers, and Jin Sun-mi, Minister of Gender Equality and Family, attended the government ceremony held at the Baekbeom Kim Koo Memorial Hall in Hyochang-dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is promoting the '2020 Memorial Day Commemoration Project' to widely inform citizens about the 'Japanese Military Comfort Women Victims Memorial Day' on August 14 and to restore the honor and promote the human rights of the Japanese military comfort women victims.

The Japanese Military Comfort Women Victims Memorial Day marks the day when the late grandmother Kim Hak-soon first publicly testified about the comfort women victimization in 1991. It was designated as a national memorial day in December 2017. The memorial day commemoration event was first held by the Seoul Metropolitan Government last year and is being held for the second time this year.

The 2019 Memorial Day Commemoration event included an international symposium on August 13 with experts and researchers on comfort women from Korea, the U.S., and Japan, focusing on the theme of 'Reenactment of Comfort Women Survivors and the Spread of Testimonies.' On August 14, a memorial monument unveiling ceremony was held near the old Joseon Shrine site at Namsan Hoehyeon Ridge, with participation from the San Francisco delegation and citizens.

This year, as it marks the 20th anniversary of the 'Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery,' which expanded the comfort women issue into an international matter, the commemorative events are being prepared more richly. Seoul is conducting the project through two channels: a subsidy project (total 80 million KRW) and a gender equality fund project (up to 30 million KRW per organization). Applications must be submitted online by the 22nd of this month with the documents specified in the announcement on the Seoul Metropolitan Government website.

Any non-profit organization or corporation related to comfort women located in Seoul can participate in the contest. Detailed information is available on the Seoul Metropolitan Government website (http://www.seoul.go.kr/news/news_notice.do#).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Memorial Day Commemoration event will not be limited to August 14, and the final date will be decided in consultation and coordination with the selected organizations.

Song Da-young, Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Women and Family Policy Office, said, "We have been striving to properly inform the history of the Japanese military comfort women by creating the 'Place of Memory' at Namsan, installing the 'Comfort Women Memorial Monument,' and discovering and spreading related records." She added, "We will work hard to widely inform citizens about the Japanese Military Comfort Women Victims Memorial Day to honor the victim grandmothers and ensure that this painful history does not repeat itself."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.