South Korean victims of Japan's wartime forced labor have strongly opposed a government plan to provide compensation through donations from domestic firms.

In a press briefing on Monday, legal teams representing the victims of Japan's forced labor, the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization by Imperial Japan and the Center for Historical Truth and Justice said that it had heard about the “proposal” from the foreign ministry last week.

They warned that this would be a diplomatic defeat and a disaster as it fulfills the Japanese government's continuous call for South Korea to solve the compensation issue itself and would exempt Japan from responsibility.

The group also said while this plan was not officially announced, the process was already under way and is pending approval by the interior ministry.

In 2018, Japanese firms were ordered by the South Korean top court to pay the indemnities, to which Tokyo has argued that all reparation issues were resolved in the 1965 treaty that normalized bilateral relations.