A group of scholars from Germany, France and Japan recently sent a letter to a regional government in Berlin calling for the permanent installation of a statue symbolizing Korean victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery.

Steffi Richter, a professor at Leipzig University, Elissa Mailander, a professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po), Sven Saaler, a Japanese history professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, asked the borough of Mitte in the German capital to permanently preserve the statue of peace. 

The letter was sent on June 20, the same day the borough’s council adopted a resolution seeking the permanent installation of the sculpture. 

In the letter, the scholars said Russia’s war on Ukraine shows that wartime sexual violence is not a thing of the past and the statue serves as a witness to the continuation of wartime crimes against women and their long-standing implications. 

They also said the statue is an acknowledgment of the public testimonies and political struggles experienced by the Asian and Dutch victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery since the 1990s.

The statue was erected in the German borough in 2020 as a result of efforts by an alliance of Korean and German civic groups, including Korea Verband, a civic group based in Berlin. The Japanese government and Japanese lawmakers have urged the statue’s removal.