The Seoul court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, descendants of a South Korean national. They previously demanded 200 million won. The compensation is requested for the forced mobilization of their ancestor to work in the steel mill Nippon Steel between 1940 and 1942. The court refused their demand because the right to claim compensation had expired. Nevertheless, Thursday’s decision reversed this previous ruling.
South Korea used to be a Japanese colony as Japan ruled the Korean peninsula from 1910 until 1945, the year South Korea obtained its independence. During the Second World War, Japan forced hundreds of thousands of Koreans into forced labor in factories and mines to support its economy during the war.
In 1965, South Korea and Japan signed a treaty that normalized the diplomatic relations between them. This treaty included the allocation by Japan of $500 million to the Korean government in economic aid. According to Japanese authorities, this economic aid ended once and for all any compensation allegations.
Nevertheless, this didn’t prevent South Korean survivors of the labor camps and their families from claiming damages for the forced labor and the suffering they had to endure. In 2018, South Korea’s supreme court upheld a lower court’s ruling and ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan to compensate South Koreans who were forced into labor at their factories during World War II. Another verdict rendered by South Korea’s supreme court in 2023 also confirmed that two Japanese companies, the shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen Corporation and the heavy equipment manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries owe 200 million won as compensation to a former South Korean worker and 16 other families of former laborers.
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