Civic Groups Urge UNESCO to Advance Long-Stalled Listing of Comfort Women Documents
Key Takeaways
- •Civic groups from eight countries, including South Korea and China, first filed the UNESCO listing request in May 2016 under the title 'Voices of the Comfort Women.'
- •The listing process has been stalled since 2017, when UNESCO's International Advisory Committee opted to facilitate dialogue between the coalition and four other submitting groups from Japan and the United States.
- •The first round of talks, originally set for June 2025, has been postponed twice, leaving the timing of any listing decision uncertain.
- •Only five surviving victims remain in South Korea, alongside small numbers in China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste, according to the civic groups.
- •Historians estimate tens of thousands of women, mostly Koreans under Japan's colonial rule, were forced into the wartime sexual slavery system, a persistent source of friction in South Korea-Japan relations.
A coalition of civic groups staged a press conference in Seoul on Sunday, calling on UNESCO to swiftly move forward with a long-stalled bid to register documents related to Japan's wartime sexual slavery of women on its Memory of the World Register.
The Memory of the World Register, established by UNESCO in 1992, preserves documentary heritage of global significance. Listings on the register have at times become politically contentious: after China's 2015 inscription of Nanjing Massacre documents, Japan temporarily suspended its UNESCO contributions, and historical-document listings involving Japan have since been handled with particular caution. The civic coalition is seeking inclusion of records documenting the plight of women, mostly Koreans, who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II.
The effort dates to May 2016, when civic groups from eight countries, including South Korea and China, filed an official request with UNESCO for the listing of the documents. The submitted materials, filed under the title "Voices of the Comfort Women," include victims' testimonies and other records related to the wartime sexual slavery system. Historians estimate that tens of thousands of women, predominantly Koreans under Japan's colonial rule, were mobilized into the system, an issue that has remained a recurring point of friction in South Korea-Japan relations, including the 2015 bilateral agreement that was later effectively nullified by Seoul.
According to the civic groups, the number of surviving comfort women victims continues to decline. Only five remain in South Korea, six in China, five in the Philippines, roughly 20 in Indonesia and one in Timor-Leste, they said — a shrinking pool of firsthand witnesses that the groups argue adds urgency to preserving the documentary record.
The listing process has been stalled since 2017, when UNESCO's International Advisory Committee decided to facilitate dialogue between the coalition and four other groups from Japan and the United States that had separately submitted records on the same issue. The first round of talks, initially scheduled for June 2025, has been postponed twice. Whether the dialogue resumes and reaches an outcome will determine when, or whether, the "Voices of the Comfort Women" materials come to a formal listing decision.
