The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance

The head of a shelter for South Korean victims of Japan's wartime sex slavery was found dead in her home in an apparent suicide, according to the police Sunday.

According to the police, her body was found in her apartment in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, at 10:35 a.m., Saturday. The police didn't find any traces of intruders and ruled out the possibility of homicide.



The shelter, run by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issue of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Korean Council), has been the center of controversy since May, when sex slavery survivor Lee Yong-soo came forward publicly to criticize the Korean Council and the organization's former director Yoon Mee-hyang for misusing funds. Yoon left the post in April after winning a National Assembly seat in a proportional representation vote.

"The late director struggled to accept what was happening to the organization," the Korean Council said in a statement released on Sunday. "Putting her personal life aside, she committed herself to taking care of those survivors' health and well-being. After the prosecution's visit, she pleaded that her life was being completely negated."

The Korean Council is currently under a prosecution investigation over the allegations of embezzlement and illegal accounting practices.



Yoon blamed the media and prosecutors for her former colleague's death.

"The media talked about the shelter as if it were a criminal shelter and prosecutors rushed there for confiscation. Constant pressure and endless phone calls must have made her feel like she was guilty. This must have been too much for her," she wrote on Facebook, Sunday.

On May 21, prosecutors made a surprise visit to the shelter and confiscated accounting documents and others, and then questioned the council's accounting officer.

Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office expressed condolence Sunday, saying "although we've been investigating the allegations, she was never our direct target."

Yoon was seen at the shelter on Sunday morning, walking into the building with one hand covering her tearful face.

Located in Mapo-gu, western Seoul, the shelter opened in 2012 with the help of a local church and is currently housing only one survivor, Gil Won-ok. Yoon is currently living in Daegu.

According to news reports, the Korean Council purchased another shelter, located in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, in 2013, above the market price and sold it back recently below the market price, a move which Yoon's critics regarded with suspicion.

It turned out that the organization paid Yoon's father to take care of the property while it owned the property. Yoon explained it was because the group couldn't manage to find anyone more suitable.



The suicide is a new development in the spiraling controversy surrounding Yoon.

In two news conferences in May, Lee said she had been completed deceived by Yoon and added the former activist didn't deserve to represent the citizens at the National Assembly. Also, the survivor demanded Yoon should return to the Korean Council and continue the advocacy work.

Over the weekend, Lee continued her criticisms of Yoon at a highly publicized event for the sex slavery survivors.

Yoon dismissed the allegations as groundless and pledged to continue addressing the issue through legislative work.

Experts and those who've been following the sex slavery issue said the recent controversy is damaging the advocacy work.

‘Inflicting great harm’
Lee’s claims are taking a toll on a campaign once that united South Koreans from across the political spectrum behind a shared contempt for Japan, whose 1910-1945 rule of the Korean peninsula continues to sour bilateral ties.

Last weekend, Sohn Young-mi, the head of a shelter for some of the surviving women, was found dead at her home. The cause of death has not been established but police believe it was a suicide, according to South Korean media. Sohn had not been accused of financial misconduct.



While most South Koreans support the women’s demands for an official apology and compensation from Japan, a recent poll by Realmeter found that 70% believed Yoon should resign her national assembly seat.

The conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo said the council had “hitch-hiked on incendiary anti-Japanese sentiment, driven by political motives,” adding that it had made it “even harder” to resolve the comfort women issue. The centre-left Hankyoreh newspaper said Yoon and the council “need to be transparent about the allegations ... and if any wrongdoing comes to light, they must take responsibility for it,” but warned that the scandal was being exploited by Japanese right-wingers who deny the comfort women were coerced.

This week, Moon broke his silence, telling colleagues that the scandal should not be allowed to undermine the comfort women’s cause. “The victims’ wounds have not been completely healed, as a true apology and reconciliation are still out of reach,” he said, according to the Yonhap news agency.



Lee’s allegations, he said, were an opportunity to scrutinise how support groups had operated. But he added: “It is not right to attempt to deny the comfort women campaign and damage its cause. That would destroy the dignity and honour of the victims.”

The council has said it will continue to protest outside the Japanese embassy every Wednesday until the comfort women controversy is “resolved.” The rallies have been held more than 1,400 times since January 1992, with survivors joining student activists to call for an official apology and compensation from the Japanese government.

The scandal is a reminder that for Lee and other victims, their quest for justice is also a battle against time. An estimated 46 former sex slaves were alive at the time of the doomed agreement with Japan; just five years later, as Lee went public with her explosive claims about a movement that was once politically untouchable, she was one of only 17 survivors.