Several South Korean civic groups have criticized the government over its move to resolve the issue of compensating the victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor through a third party. 

The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan raised its voice over the matter during its weekly protest rally on Wednesday along with Joint Action for Historical Justice and Peaceful Korea-Japan Relations and other activist groups. 

Council chief Lee Na-young argued the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s solution is already a failed one, accusing the government of treating the victims as ignorant and weak beneficiaries or those who can be ignored. 

Calling it a “hasty and humiliating” solution, she criticized it for trampling the dignity and honor of the victims and called on the government to withdraw it. 

Earlier this month, the foreign ministry formally presented a possible plan to compensate the victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor via the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization by Imperial Japan under the interior ministry.