Japan–South Korea Comfort Women Agreement

What Happened

On 28 December 2015 the foreign ministers of Japan and South Korea announced an agreement intended to settle the comfort women dispute between the two countries "finally and irreversibly." The announcement was made in Seoul by Yun Byung-se, South Korea's foreign minister, and in Tokyo by Fumio Kishida, his Japanese counterpart, and was confirmed the same day in a telephone call between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

The agreement rested on two concrete commitments. Japan would contribute one billion yen to a fund for the surviving women, and the Japanese government would state that it felt responsibility for the issue. Both governments would refrain from criticising each other over the comfort women question in international forums, and South Korea would work toward removing the statue of a young girl that had been placed in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul.

The deal was not a treaty ratified by legislatures. It took the form of an exchange of statements between the two governments, announced by the foreign ministers and endorsed at the level of head of government. That structure mattered later: it made the agreement easy to conclude quickly, and equally easy to leave in limbo when political weather changed.

By 2019 the agreement had been effectively shelved. The fund Japan had financed was dissolved, and the South Korean government under President Moon Jae-in treated the 2015 understanding as politically unsustainable, while stopping short of formally tearing it up.

Background

The comfort women (慰安婦, いあんふ, ianfu) were women, many of them Korean, who were forced into sexual servitude in brothels run for the Japanese military before and during the Second World War. The issue became a matter of public controversy in the early 1990s, when Korean survivors came forward and the Japanese government acknowledged its involvement.

Diplomatic friction over the issue ran for decades. It damaged summit meetings, shaped textbook disputes, and repeatedly spilled into international organisations. A previous attempt at settlement, the Asian Women's Fund of the mid-1990s, was rejected by many survivors and activists in South Korea because its money came from private donations rather than from the Japanese state.

The 2015 agreement was designed to break that pattern by putting government money and a government statement at the centre of the settlement. It was reached under two conservative governments, Abe's and Park's, which shared an interest in improving relations in the face of North Korean missile and nuclear tests and a rising China.

Why It Mattered

The agreement's language of finality and irreversibility was unusual in a dispute that had resisted closure for more than twenty years. It committed both governments to stop raising the issue against each other internationally, which would have removed a recurring irritant from regional diplomacy.

It also established a state-funded mechanism, the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation, to distribute the one billion yen to surviving women. For the first time, money for the survivors came directly from the Japanese government budget rather than from private sources.

The agreement's collapse demonstrated how fragile such settlements are when they rest on executive statements rather than on legislation or treaty ratification. A change of government in Seoul was enough to suspend the foundation's work and leave the agreement without an institutional home. The girl statue in front of the embassy remained in place, becoming the most visible symbol of the unresolved dispute.

The episode also showed that the survivors themselves were not parties to the negotiation. Many rejected the settlement at the time it was announced, and their opposition gave later governments the political room to abandon it.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 慰安婦問題日韓合意, read いあんふもんだいにっかんごうい and romanised as ianfu mondai nikkan gōi. It breaks into four words: 慰安婦 (comfort women), 問題 (problem or issue), 日韓 (Japan–Korea), and 合意 (agreement). Character by character:

慰 — read い (i) here. It means to comfort or console. On its own the character carries the sense of soothing someone.

安 — read あん (an) here. It means peace, safety, or ease. Combined with 慰 it forms 慰安 (いあん, ian), "comfort" or "consolation" — the same word used in 慰安旅行 (a company leisure trip) and in the wartime euphemism 慰安所 (いあんじょ, ianjo), the "comfort stations" where the women were held.

婦 — read ふ (fu) here. It means woman or wife. 慰安婦 (いあんふ, ianfu) therefore literally reads "comfort woman," a term coined by the Japanese military. English speakers usually render it as "comfort women," keeping the euphemism intact; Korean usage more often says "comfort women" too, while survivors' groups prefer terms that name sexual slavery directly.

問 — read もん (mon) here. It means to ask or to question.

題 — read だい (dai) here. It means topic or subject. Together 問題 (もんだい, mondai) is the standard Japanese word for "problem," "issue," or "question," and appears in headlines constantly.

日 — read にっ (nit) here, a shortened form of にち (nichi). It means day, and by extension Japan, from 日本 (にほん, nihon), "origin of the sun." In compounds 日韓 means "Japan–Korea," pairing 日 with the first character of 韓国 (かんこく, kankoku), South Korea.

韓 — read かん (kan) here. It is the character for Korea, used in 韓国 (South Korea) and 韓国語 (the Korean language).

合 — read ごう (gō) here. It means to fit together or to join.

意 — read い (i) here. It means mind, intention, or meaning. Together 合意 (ごうい, gōi) means "agreement" or "consensus" — literally a joining of minds. It is the ordinary word for a deal reached between parties, as distinct from 条約 (じょうやく, jōyaku), a formal treaty, which is precisely why the 2015 document is called a 合意 and not a 条約.

Key Figures

Shinzo Abe (安倍晋三, あべ しんぞう) — Prime Minister of Japan at the time of the agreement. He confirmed the settlement with Park Geun-hye by telephone on 28 December 2015.

Fumio Kishida (岸田文雄, きしだ ふみお) — Foreign Minister of Japan, who announced the agreement in Tokyo on 28 December 2015. He later became Prime Minister.

Park Geun-hye (朴槿恵, パク・クネ) — President of South Korea, who confirmed the agreement with Abe by telephone on 28 December 2015.

Yun Byung-se (尹炳世, ユン・ビョンセ) — Foreign Minister of South Korea, who announced the agreement in Seoul on 28 December 2015.

Moon Jae-in (文在寅, ムン・ジェイン) — President of South Korea from 2017, under whom the agreement was effectively shelved by 2019.