Sex slave statue erected in northern Seoul suburb of Goyang

"Look. We have another one that looks the same."

Pedestrians on Sunday took a close look at a statue that seemed familiar in passing the third-floor corridor of Goyang City Hall in Gyeonggi Province. After trying to guess what it was and closely looking the front and back of the statue, a few people took photos of the statue.

The statue is called “Girl’s Statue of Peace” and symbolizes Korean victims of sexual slavery by the Japanese military in the Second World War. It was installed Feb. 28, when the Goyang City Hall Gallery 600 was opened.

The same statue stands in front of the Japanese Embassy in Jongno, downtown Seoul. Created in December 2011 by the sculptor couple of Kim Un-seong and Kim Seo-gyeong, it was meant to commemorate the 1,000th protest by former sex slaves every Wednesday in front of the embassy.

The 130-centimeter statue is made of bronze and displays the image of a slender girl in traditional Korean clothing, aged between 13 and 15. Sitting in a chair, the girl is barefoot just like when she was taken to Japan by force. Not smiling, she makes fists with both hands. An empty chair next to her symbolizes an old lady who has passed away. The girl in the silhouette has an image of a bent old lady, and contains a white butterfly symbolizing reincarnation to suggest that she can never forget even after death.

Kim Un-seong said, “We made the girl’s statue to show our respect for the courage of the old ladies who condemn Japan’s atrocity by revisiting the pain and suffering that they had kept in their hearts for decades.”

What is the relation between the statue in front of the Japanese Embassy and the one at Goyang City Hall? The latter came one year later after the sculptor couple built the former.

At the request of a civic group last year, the sculptors started production work to erect a memorial statue in Singapore, where the Japanese military had a house installed for the sex slaves. But the Singaporean government rejected the idea in late January this year.

Eventually, the statue was shown in several exhibitions before being installed at the gallery in Goyang City Hall, which was opened last month. It will be relocated in May to the Goyang City 600 Year Hall, which is under construction in Hosu (Lake) Park.

dalsarang@donga.com