Surviving S. Korean wartime sex slavery victims fall to 17 as another dies

SEOUL - An elderly South Korean woman, who was forced into sexual slavery for Japanese military brothels during World War II, died early Tuesday, reducing the number of surviving victims in the country to 17.

Who she is was not made public. Before death, she had stayed at the House of Sharing, a civic shelter advocating the so-called comfort women victims, a euphemism for the sex slaves.

All the funeral service process will not be made known according to the woman's will and the call from her bereaved families, Yonhap news agency reported citing the Korean Council for Justice Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, an advocacy group for the former sex slaves.

With the woman's death, the number of surviving victims in South Korea declined to 17 out of the 240 officially registered with the South Korean government.

Historians said as many as 400,000 women from Asian countries, including the Korean Peninsula, were forced into sex enslavement for Japanese military brothels before and during the Pacific War.