The Hiroshima High Court on Thursday overturned a 1998 ruling ordering the Japanese government to compensate South Korean woman sex slaves to Imperial Japanese Army soldiers during World War II.
Thursday's ruling overturned the Yamaguchi District Court ruling on April 27, 1998, which ordered the Japanese government to pay a total of 900,000 yen (7,300 US dollars) to three former South Korean sex slaves for their suffering during World War II. Han Sun Nyo, one of the three Korean, died in May 2000.
Seven other South Korean women, who joined the three in the suit seeking compensation for wartime forced labor, was also turned down.
The nine plaintiffs in the suit plan to appeal the high court ruling, said their lawyer Seita Yamamoto.
The suit was originally filed by four of the plaintiffs, including two of the former sex slaves and two of the former forced laborers, in December 1992 to seek 396 million yen (3.21 million US dollars) from the Japanese government. The six others joined the suit later.
Both the plaintiffs and the government appealed the 1998 ruling, which was the only one of ten or so similar suits filed at the time to win a compensation order.
During World War II, the Japanese army forced tens of thousands of women from Asian countries to serve as sex slaves for Japanese troops.
(Xinhua 03/29/2001)
