[Photo] First death of former comfort woman in 2018

The first death in 2018 of a former comfort woman for the Japanese military occurred on Feb. 14, when an 88-year-old woman passed away at the House of Sharing in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. The woman surnamed Kim, whose identity family members refused to make public, was sent to Okayama, Japan in 1945 as a 16-year-old and suffered a great deal of hardship there. She had been diagnosed with dementia and had recently suffered a stroke.

The recent death reduces the number of surviving former comfort women to 30 after eight women died in 2017. The average age of the surviving women is 90.6 years. The women who passed away in the 2017 include Song Shin-do, Lee Ki-jeong, Kim Kun-ja, Lee Soon-deok, Ha Sang-sook, and Park Cha-soon. The families of the other deceased women chose not to make their identities public, and they have been represented by a picture instead with the words, “Pray for the repose of the grandmother’s soul.” (provided by Jeongdaehyeop)