Last month, South Korea was stunned when 91-year-old former "comfort woman" Lee Young-soo blasted incoming lawmaker Yoon Mee-hyang, 55, who had previously headed a prominent group that supported the women.
Comfort women are women who provided sex to Japanese soldiers in wartime brothels. They were forced or coerced into sexual servitude under various circumstances, including abduction, deception and poverty.
Lee charged that Yoon and the group she had led, the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, had exploited her and other former comfort women for many years. Korean prosecutors then raided the Seoul office of the Korean Council on suspicion the group had misused funds. The scandal has shaken not only those in South Korea who deal with the issue but also the administration of President Moon Jae-in.