In the News

Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Korea, released the following statement in response to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s apology and compensation offer to South Korean “Comfort Women” victims:

“I welcome the long overdue apology for the “Comfort Women” and hopefully the beginning of a new chapter in South Korea-Japan relations. The plight of the “Comfort Women” is a matter of historical record, and Prime Minister Abe’s actions today should help offer these women and their families the dignity and respect they deserve.”

Congressman Connolly is co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Korea and a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and its Subcommittee on the Asia-Pacific. Connolly has supported legislation that called on the Government of Japan to accept responsibility for World War II era transgressions, namely the coercion of women into sexual slavery. The legislation also urged the Prime Minister to issue a public statement in his official capacity apologizing for the enslavement and trafficking of women.

In 2014, Connolly wrote to the Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. to express his profound disappointment that the Government of Japan had conducted a review of a statement issued by Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993 acknowledging the coercion of “Comfort Women” into sexual servitude by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces. In the letter, Connolly noted that any effort to diminish the suffering experienced by the “Comfort Women” or undermine the Japanese government’s subsequent contrition is deeply regrettable.