hankyoreh

The House of Sharing in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province. (Lee Jeong-a, staff photographer)

Reports are surfacing about a lack of transparency in handling donations and the inappropriate treatment of the women at the House of Sharing, in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, a shelter for former comfort women. Even though the shelter had accrued more than 6.4 billion won (US$5.2 million) in donations through last year, sources say that the women there weren’t given decent medical treatment and that the board of directors has been planning to use the donations to build a luxury retirement center. Such reports are both infuriating and discouraging.

Transcripts of board meetings that have been revealed by the Hankyoreh show that the board of the House of Sharing (a social welfare foundation affiliated with the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism) has been discussing using donations to set up a general-use retirement center since 2018. In apparent support of this plan, the shelter submitted a draft revision to its articles of association to the city of Gwangju this past February that would change the nature of its business from a “free retirement center” to an “elderly retirement center,” for which fees can be collected. The shelter has also diverted donations to enlarge the facility and purchase land for unclear purposes, without the consent of the donors. Employees at the center were even reportedly asked to recruit women who aren’t former comfort women to move into the shelter.

The House of Sharing has received close to 2 billion won (US$1.6 million) in donations each year since South Korea and Japan reached a controversial agreement on the comfort women on Dec. 28, 2015. Nevertheless, employees say the comfort women haven’t been able to buy extra clothing that they want and haven’t received proper treatment for their injuries. On top of that, the possessions of the surviving comfort women and the effects of the deceased were damaged during the enlargement of the facility. If the House of Sharing can’t even take care of these women’s historically significant possessions, one can’t help but ask why it even exists.

The Jogye Order’s response to these allegations is that it doesn’t directly manage or oversee the House of Sharing and that it has no direct involvement in the shelter. Even if the Jogye Order doesn’t have any authority over management or oversight, it’s disappointing to see the order emphasize its lack of legal responsibility when the shelter’s articles of association state that two-thirds of the directors must be monks from the order. Such an attitude denies the very dedication of the monks who helped set up the House of Sharing in 1992.

Considering that Ven. Wonhaeng, the current president of the Jogye Order, was involved in running the shelter for more than two decades, the order ought to take more responsibility. Most importantly, the current management and board of directors need to carry out a thorough investigation of who is responsible for the issues that have been raised and devise measures to correct those issues. The local government should also be proactive about finding a solution, given its failure to provide proper oversight over the shelter’s abnormal practice of collecting donations in its corporate bank account rather than in the account actually used for facility management.

Along with the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (Korean Council), the House of Sharing is one of the organizations that symbolizes the comfort women movement. Many individuals have gladly made donations with the hope of providing the comfort women with some small compensation for their painful past and to ensure they’re taken care of in their final years. The allegations that are being raised are deeply disappointing for the donors and for the general public.

There needs to be a painful reckoning at the House of Sharing to restore the spirit for which it was founded. That’s the least that can be done for the six surviving comfort women at the shelter, as well as those who have already passed away. That’s also what must be done to restore trust in the comfort women movement and to help it overcome the damage suffered and rise again.

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