Footage of Korean women sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers in WWII revealed for the first time

1 00:00:01,700 --> 00:00:07,9 Japan's sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War Two is one unresolved issue 2 00:00:07,9 --> 00:00:11,799 that continues to strain relations between the two countries. 3 00:00:11,799 --> 00:00:16,209 However, all these decades later,.... the Japanese government still tries to whitewash 4 00:00:16,209 --> 00:00:18,540 its wartime atrocities. 5 00:00:18,540 --> 00:00:24,820 At long last evidence has been found that should aid Seoul's efforts to corner Tokyo 6 00:00:24,820 --> 00:00:25,240 into facing reality. 7 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:28,350 Lee Ji-won tells us more. 8 00:00:28,350 --> 00:00:33,260 Women,... with faces full of fear,... are lined up against a wall. 9 00:00:33,260 --> 00:00:37,230 A man, presumed to be a Chinese officer, talks to them. 10 00:00:37,230 --> 00:00:43,640 This short 18 second video is of seven Korean women sexually enslaved by the Japanese soldiers 11 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:47,140 in Yunnan province, southwest China, around the end of World War II. 12 00:00:47,140 --> 00:00:52,110 It is the first-ever video footage of Korean victims that has been found. 13 00:00:52,110 --> 00:00:57,200 On Wednesday, Seoul city and Professor Chung Chin-sung of Seoul National University unveiled 14 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:03,920 the video from 1944,... which had been stored in the National Archives and Records Administration 15 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:06,49 of the United States for over 70 years. 16 00:01:06,49 --> 00:01:10,130 Previously,... footage of Chinese comfort women had been found,... but there were only 17 00:01:10,130 --> 00:01:13,409 pictures and documents on the Korean comfort women. 18 00:01:13,409 --> 00:01:18,139 But after the professor and his research team were certain that a video on the Korean victims 19 00:01:18,139 --> 00:01:23,759 existed, they spent two years searching for the footage,... and they finally found what 20 00:01:23,759 --> 00:01:27,600 they were looking for amongst hundreds of film reels last month. 21 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:31,240 The footage was taken by an American combat photographer just after the region was reclaimed 22 00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:34,740 from Japan by the Chinese. 23 00:01:34,740 --> 00:01:39,979 During World War II, an estimated 200-thousand women, mostly Koreans, were kidnapped and 24 00:01:39,979 --> 00:01:42,399 forced to become sex slaves for Japanese troops. 25 00:01:42,399 --> 00:01:47,70 While an agreement between Korea and Japan was made by the previous Park Geun-hye administration 26 00:01:47,70 --> 00:01:53,999 in 2015,... where Japan financially compensated the victims with one billion yen, or about 27 00:01:53,999 --> 00:01:58,479 8-point-9 million U.S. dollars, thousands of citizens and the surviving victims criticized 28 00:01:58,479 --> 00:02:04,90 and refused the deal as Tokyo claimed there was no evidence of the Japanese military forcing 29 00:02:04,90 --> 00:02:06,149 the enslavement of women. 30 00:02:06,149 --> 00:02:11,210 But with Korea's newly elected President Moon Jae-in calling for renegotiation of the deal,... 31 00:02:11,210 --> 00:02:16,959 the research team says that they hope the footage will work as a tool to open up such 32 00:02:16,959 --> 00:02:17,989 talks. 33 00:02:17,989 --> 00:02:22,141 "We hope the new findings will bring the public's attention and interest on the matter,... so 34 00:02:22,141 --> 00:02:27,189 that when President Moon has his first bilateral talk with the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo 35 00:02:27,189 --> 00:02:34,269 Abe, at the G20 summit later this week, an atmosphere for renegotiation can be made." 36 00:02:34,269 --> 00:02:39,299 With only 38 Korean victims still alive,... the research team stressed their determination 37 00:02:39,299 --> 00:02:44,60 to uncover this video evidence of Japan's sexual slavery so that there's a chance for 38 00:02:44,60 --> 00:02:46,459 the issue to be resolved within their lifetimes. 39 00:02:46,459 --> 00:02:49,609 Lee Ji-won, Arirang News.