Yongsan Station is the historical site , once called as a human warehouse, where the conscripted Korean laborers by the Japanese imperial government were gathered to distribute to the Japanese companies of mining, military supplies, plantations, construction and engineering operating in Japan, Sakhalin, South Pacific islands and the Kuril Islands during World War II.
The 2-meter statue is the image of a conscripted Korean laborer featured with very thin and visible rips due to malnutrition, symbolizing over a million of forced labor victims who had been exploited in harsh working conditions by the Japanese companies during World War II.
The move to erect the forced labor statue was led by the two national trade union centers of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions(FKTU) and Korean Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU) not to forget the painful history and not to let the tragic history repeated.
reported by Bae Hye-jung
translated by Kim Sung-jin