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Imperial Japan incessantly committed acts of aggression and war. Near its collapse, it struggled from a chronic shortage of supplies from prolonged war as the Second Sino-Japanese War extended into the Pacific War. Consequently, its colony Joseon (Korea) came to serve as a logistics base for Japan's war operations.

In April 1938, Japan proclaimed the National Mobilization Law and set out to organize a full-scale mobilization system. The proclaimed law was a fundamental one concerning wartime control which allowed Japan to most effectively demonstrate its might by mobilizing resources for war from not only mainland Japan, but its colonies and other areas it occupied. Based on this law, Japan enacted and proclaimed other related ordinances to requisition Korean labor such as the National Conscription Ordinance (1939), proclamation of the conscription of Koreans (1943), Women's Voluntary Labor Ordinance (1944), Student Labor Mobilization Ordinance (1944), and National Labor Mobilization Ordinance (1945). Disobeying or evading compliance with such ordinances was an offence that could be sentenced to less than three years of imprisonment or a fine of less than 5,000 yen.

From Sakhalin up north down to a small island in the South Pacific, more than 400,000 Koreans were mobilized as soldiers or civilian employees of the Japanese army at nearly all areas Japan invaded and occupied. It has been reported that up to 700,000 Koreans were taken away and exploited at coal mines, construction sites, and munitions factories operated by Japan. Especially after the Women's Voluntary Labor Ordinance was proclaimed, hundreds of thousands of women between the age of twelve and forty were assigned to the Korean Women's Volunteer Labour Corps and forced to work at munitions factories or serve as "comfort women" for the Japanese military. For destroying the dignity and lives of so many people, Japan's labor mobilization was a shocking crime against humanity.

Since the early 1990s, I have been involved in activities with victims of forced mobilization and bereaved families to heal their wounds and reinstate their dignity. Back then, there were still many survivors who had come back from the brink of death. They would share vivid accounts of what happened to them with bereaved children who had no memory of their forcibly mobilized parents. But as time went by, most of those able to testify to the history of forced mobilization have passed away along with bereaved family members or have grown too old and ill to further provide testimonies.

It was heart-breaking to hear tearful stories of how people had to cope with losing their father or sibling to Japan. Some said they couldn't die for fear of letting their family go extinct, some burst out sobbing when they first came across a document confirming their father was alive, some were disappointed from turning up with nothing despite having searched so hard, and some were hurt from being unable to file lawsuits without any documentation to prove what had caused them to suffer. Pain like that can never be described in just a few words. There was nothing left for the bereaved to do but spend the rest of their lives preoccupied with keeping memories about their missing father alive, looking for any clue that could bring them closer to what really happened, and resenting the fact that their loved ones went missing without leaving a single trace behind. So, investigating the truth about Japan's forced mobilization has not only been about recording Korea's tragic history of colonization and division, but about relieving the sorrow of those who lost their loved ones to that history.

The year of 2018 marks the eightieth year since Japan proclaimed the National Mobilization Law. To commemorate the occasion and further explore the history of forced mobilization, I took part in revisiting victims and bereaved family members to face their tragedies once more. As I listened to their testimonies, my heart sank from being unable to figure out where things went wrong and how they can be set right. The fathers of bereaved children had been ordinary sons and husbands who were only guilty of being born under Japanese occupation. And although the children weren't to blame for the loss of their father, they had to give up much for not having a father. They had to live helplessly without any chance to argue for what was rightfully theirs.

Korea became liberated, but the Korean government traded the victims of forced mobilization for money instead looking after them. The 1965 Korea-Japan Settlement Agreement begs the question of whether the victims were actually compensated and whether they were deprived of even the right to demand what was rightfully theirs. Korea was able to achieve economic development thanks to investing the settlement money from Japan, but at the cost of neglecting the victims of forced mobilization. To the bereaved of such victims, the history of Japanese occupation is not of the past, but of the present.

In June 2017, the Center for Historical Truth and Justice and the Council for the Promotion of Reparations for Pacific War Victims published a book to communicate the voices of surviving family members of forced mobilization victims. The book holds a collection of testimonies from 23 individuals who recount how a family member became forcibly mobilized for Imperial Japan's wars of aggression and what labor conditions had been like at the time. They each explain what sort of circumstances the rest of the family were driven into after the forced mobilization of a father, husband, or brother and how they coped with such circumstances for the rest of their lives. The book is full of stories about how victims struggled to take care of their families as they suffered discrimination and exclusion from society for being without a father or a husband and were neglected by the governments of Korea and Japan. The book therefore also serves as a report about how the Korean government and society looked away from their pain, demonstrating that the scars have lasted long after the end of Japan’s colonial rule and pointing to what Korea and Japan need to focus on regarding the issue.

The government and corporations of Japan are primarily responsible for causing the harm done by forced mobilization. Instead of irresponsibly repeating that all matters of compensation have been settled through the 1965 Korea-Japan Settlement Agreement, the Japanese government should try harder to sincerely reflect on its wrongdoings and resolve remaining issues. Likewise, the Korean government should not try to eschew responsibility. It has recently begun to slowly take an interest in listening to the victims, but surviving family members of such victims are still being neglected and their struggles are not yet recognized as a separate harm caused by forced mobilization. Despite being disregarded by both governments, the surviving family members of forced mobilization victims have been traveling back and forth between Korea and Japan for decades in search of any news or records about the victims, to hold Japanese corporations responsible for forced labor, and to remove the victims' names the Japanese government included without consent on the list of Japan's war dead kept at the Yasukuni Shrine.

The Korean government should work on securing material related to forced mobilization victims that are being kept by the Japanese government and corporations. Records of the victims' postal savings and pension should be handed over to their surviving family members. What the Korean government should also be doing is to sort and analyze records that can serve as proof of forced mobilization and presented as such to Japan. Doing so can thereafter allow such material and records to be used for lawsuits and supporting forced mobilization victims. Projects to recover the victims’ remains should be launched as well. After all, shouldn't the role of a civilized country lie in recovering the remains of victims asleep in waters far away or under unfamiliar skies and finding out on their behalf the truth about what happened to them? According to international law, the statute of limitations does not apply to war crimes or crimes against humanity. Before all the victims and their surviving family members pass away, before all their memories become forgotten, the governments of Korea and Japan should be more active in resolving relevant issues as soon as possible.

If the government could make up for the childhood sorrows surviving children of forced mobilization victims went through and try to reinstate their rights, they may be able to truly be joyful about their country's liberation. It would be impossible to make up for everything, but I hope they will be able to discard some of their deep, long-held resentment before they get to at last meet their loved ones. Although the surviving family members of forced mobilization victims are turning into a blur amid the tides of history, they have not remained as mere victims. Their experiences of Korea's colonization and division may be summarized into a single line in textbooks, but gray-haired victims and surviving family members are still making claims for their rights at parliamentary halls and court rooms in Korea and Japan to this day. Tracing their lives may allow Koreans to gain a new understanding of their country’s contemporary history and the turbulent times their ancestors had to endure.

Planned and published by the Center for Historical Truth and Justice and the Council for the Promotion of Reparations for Pacific War Victims, "Aching for Lost Parents: A Collection of Testimonies by Families of Forced Mobilization Victims" presents the stories and lives of 23 Koreans who each had a family member forcibly mobilized and fall victim to Japanese imperialism's wars of aggression. The book stresses that Korea's complete liberation can only be achieved upon the resolution of issues left behind from the Japanese occupation. The struggles featured in the book about people who lost their family members to forced mobilization urge readers to consider what the government and corporations of Japan should be held accountable for and realize how the Korean society has chosen to so far neglect such issues.

Choi Nak-hoon

Born in 1940 in Seoul. Son of Choi Cheon-ho who went missing after having been conscripted to work at the Kaijima coal mine in Fukuoka, Japan.

The thought of my mother haunted me when I cried aloud for my father for the first time in 72 years since we parted. I could almost hear my poor mother lament "how could you leave your dear wife and board a ferry to Osaka, Japan." Since the age of 27, she had to resort to peddling in order to raise her three sons. Whenever something featuring forced mobilization would appear on TV, I can clearly remember her saying "we should at least be able to catch a glimpse of your father's remains," even after she became an elderly woman.

Shin Myeong-ok

Born in 1946 in Yeonbaek, Hwanghae Province. Daughter-in-law of Park Heon-tae who was drafted into the Japanese military and killed in action in Anhui Province, China.

It must have been two days before she passed away. When I asked my mother-in-law, "Who do you want to see the most?" she didn't answer at first. Again I asked, "Do you want to see your son? How about your grandchildren?" "Yes." "Tell me who else you'd like to see. Who would it be?" "My husband, I want to see my husband." Husband, it was a word I'd never heard her mention since I became her daughter-in-law. As she struggled through the Pacific War near the end of Japan's colonial rule, my mother-in-law had all along been keeping a yearning deep down for her husband.

Jeong Tae-rang

Born in 1941 in Seosan, North Gyeongsang Province. Son of Jeong Bong-gyu who went missing after being conscripted in 1941 to work in Sakhalin.

“Koreans weren't able to board ships heading for their homeland right after Korea became liberated. This is where they were able to see ships heading to Japan. To think of the many who died on that island over there..." The place where the memorial service was held was where many Koreans committed suicide from being unable to board ships heading back home. Among the forcibly mobilized Korean men, only those who married a Japanese woman were able to board ships to Japan while the rest were stranded in Sakhalin.

Nam Yang-gang

Born in 1943 in Kobe, Japan. Daughter-in-law of Kim Woe-jun who went missing after being conscripted in 1943 to work in Sakhalin.

Leading a desolate life in Sakhalin with no hope of going back home, some conscripted men remarried and formed new families there, but my father-in-law is said to have lived by himself, hanging on to the hope that he would be able to return home. How he must have longed to be back with his family. How his family must have ached for the day they would be able to see him again.

Kim Mun-sik

Born in 1949 in North Gyeongsang Province. Son of Kim Jeong-ok who was conscripted in 1942 to work at the Nagasaki coal mine.

I wanted to know. Why my father had to be dragged away to a coal mine at the age of twenty. Why he had to suffer every single day until the day he died from contracting pneumoconiosis at the coal mine. Why my siblings had to suffer so much from physical disabilities. I wanted to expose the truth behind the history that planted a seed of misfortune in my family.

Lee Myeong-gu

Born in 1938 in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province. Son of Lee Nak-ho who was drafted as a civilian worker for the Japanese military and died on Palau, an island that used to be part of the Pacific Islands.

When my mother passed away, I was nine and my brother was five. With nothing to eat, my little brother often had to starve and there was nothing I could do even though I could see he was ill and fading away. He ended up dying because I failed to take better care of him as his big brother. I can never forget the sight of my brother crying because he wanted to eat the fruit placed on the table as an offering at our mother's funeral when she passed away.