Berlin Mayor Wegner met with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in Tokyo on April 16 and said, “It is important to make a change” in an effort to resolve the issue of the statue of a young girl in the German capital, Berlin, which symbolizes the damage caused by military comfort women. He said he is discussing the issue with the German government and other parties. The city of Berlin made the announcement by the 20th. The Japanese government is demanding its removal.
The Korea Council, a Korean civic group in Berlin that set up the monument, protested that it was “bowing to pressure from the Japanese government” as a move toward its removal. On the other hand, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official stated on April 20 that the installation was “voluntarily promoted by the local community and civil society for memorial and educational purposes” and that “it is undesirable for the governments of South Korea and Japan to get involved in activities at the private level.
On the Japanese side, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida directly requested German Chancellor Scholz, who visited Japan in 2022, to cooperate in the removal of the statue.
The statue of the girl was installed by the Korea Council in the Mitte district of Berlin in 2008 with the permission of the district. On the pedestal, it read in English, “During World War II, the Japanese military forcibly took girls and women and turned them into sex slaves.
© Kyodo News Inc.
