The New York Times recently covered the life of the late Kim Hak-soon, who was the first person in the world to testify as a victim of Japan’s wartime sex slavery. 

The U.S. daily covered Kim’s life in its “Overlooked” section, which is a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, it did not report. The paper previously paid tribute to Korean independence activist Yu Gwan-sun in the series back in March 2018. 

The article said Kim’s testimony on August 14, 1991 ,“gave a human face” to realities that Japanese leaders denied for decades, calling the powerful account the first public testimony by a former sex slave.

The paper said, although Kim died of lung disease at the age of 73 just six years after her testimony, she left an enduring legacy that inspired others to come forward in Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and more.

The report quoted Gay J. McDougall, a former UN special rapporteur, who said at a conference this year that nothing he wrote could make the same impact as the personal firsthand account given publicly by Kim three decades ago. 

McDougall wrote a report in 1998 that defined Japan’s wartime sex enslavement as a crime against humanity.

The Times noted that South Korea has celebrated August 14 as a national memorial day for former sex slaves since 2018.