Ha Tae-kyung Targets Democratic Party: "Many Defend Yoon Mi-hyang, but No Support for Comfort Women Grandmothers"

"Grandmother I Yong-su Faces Harsh Words Like 'Memory Problems' and 'Greedy for Big Money'"

Ha Tae-kyung, member of the United Future Party./Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Suwan] Ha Tae-kyung, a member of the Future United Party, criticized the controversy surrounding Yoon Mee-hyang, the elected member of the Democratic Party of Korea, who is suspected of misappropriating donations meant for comfort women victims, saying, "There are many people in the Democratic Party who defend Yoon Mee-hyang, but is there no one who actually defends the comfort women grandmothers?"

On the 20th, Ha posted on his Facebook, "There is growing suspicion that the elected member Yoon neglected the lives and opinions of the comfort women grandmothers and used the comfort women movement as a tool for personal gain," adding, "Nevertheless, among the Democratic Party lawmakers, many defend Yoon, but no one actually defends the comfort women grandmothers."

He continued, "Grandmother Lee Yong-soo, who exposed this incident, was even told harsh words by Yoon's side such as 'there is a problem with your memory' and 'you are greedy for a large sum of money,'" and pointed out, "However, despite these slanders, no one in the Democratic Party defended her."

He further stated, "On the contrary, those who criticized Yoon and the Justice and Memory Foundation's accounting fraud were labeled as pro-Japanese collaborators, committing secondary harm," and criticized, "The Yoon and Justice Foundation incident could have been prevented if we had listened to the grandmothers' opinions earlier."

He added, "In 2004, 13 comfort women victims, including the late Shim Mi-ja, raised issues against the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Jeongdaehyeop), but our society ignored them. This was because more attention was paid to Yoon Mee-hyang's words than to the victims' stories," and said, "The mistakes must be corrected even now."

He also emphasized, "The start must be listening to the stories of the victims, the comfort women grandmothers," and stressed, "The comfort women movement, which has been distorted into an activist interest movement, must be newly established based on victim-centered principles."

Finally, he said, "I will actively support this in the National Assembly," and added, "I hope the Democratic Party will also move away from defending Yoon based on party interests and join together to ensure the comfort women movement follows the right path."

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