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Wartime laborers' lawsuit rejected by Japanese court

South Korean war laborers and supporters head to Nagoya district court, with a banner that reads ``Don't burden the plaintiffs'' yesterday. The Japanese court rejected a claim for compensation by a group of South Korean women who were allegedly forced to work during World War II at a Mitsubishi-run aircraft factory. The plaintiffs are not eligible to seek compensation under a 1965 bilateral treaty between Japan and South Korea, the Nagoya District Court judge ruled. PHOTO: AP

Japan's Nagoya District Court yesterday turned down a lawsuit by former World War II forced laborers from South Korea demanding compensation and an apology.

The seven South Korean plaintiffs -- six former laborers and the relative of a deceased laborer -- demanded the state and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, for whom they were forced to work, pay out ?240 million yen (US$2.3 million) in compensation and offer an apology.

The plaintiffs said the seven Korean women were lured from Korea to Japan around May-June in 1944 at age 13 to 15, and were told to work in Japan while receiving higher education.

They said they were not allowed to attend school as promised and were forced to work at Mitsubishi's Nagoya factory in central Aichi prefecture, a reconnaissance aircraft plant, and were not paid until they returned to Korea after Japan surrendered in August 1945.

The plaintiffs also said they suffered mental anguish after returning home as they were mistaken to have been forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers.

Presiding Judge Kunio Sakuma said the state does not have a responsibility to pay compensation for events committed under the pre-war Constitution even if an individual suffers damage as a result of the actions of the state.

Japan ruled the Korean Peninsula as a colony before and during World War II.

To make up for a wartime labor shortage, Japan took women as laborers from the Korean Peninsula.

Around 4,000 Korean women were believed to have been sent to Japan to work as laborers, and about 300 of them worked at the Mitsubishi factory in Nagoya.

"After hearing the ruling, I feel like dying. My tears are like blood," Kim Song Ju, 75, one of the plaintiffs, said at a press conference.

The state said it cannot be held responsible for such a case under the law at that time, while Mitsubishi said it is not the same company as it was at that time.

Of the lawsuits concerning forced Korean women laborers, Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp. agreed to pay "settlement money" in a settlement in July 2000 at Japan's Supreme Court.

Two other lawsuits demanding the state compensate wartime forced laborers have been dismissed by the Supreme Court.
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