The first-ever video footage of women presumed to be Koreans, who were victims of Japanese wartime sex slavery during World War II, has been unveiled after 73 years. Until now the wartime atrocities have only been documented in photographs and personal testimony. But now the footage of the victims has been discovered and released by the Seoul National University Human Rights Center via the Seoul Metropolitan Government on Wednesday (5 July). It was filmed in 1944 by an American soldier after the US-China allied forces captured the area from the Japanese military.From the early 1930s to the end of the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of women were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. It was known to be one of the biggest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century. The tragedy remains a source of pain for the victims and still provokes diplomatic tensions between South Korea and Japan.
