Written on July 2, 2019, this essay introduces the fact that South Korean researcher Lee Woo-yeon was set to rebut, at the United Nations Office in Geneva, the claim that Korean Peninsula laborers during the war were subjected to discrimination.
Based on wage ledgers from coal mines and other historical materials, he argues that the alleged discrimination in treatment between Japanese and Korean workers is “an outright lie,” and sharply questions the irresponsibility of researchers and journalists who distort history.
Also touching on testimony videos produced by former residents of Hashima Island, this is an important piece that approaches the falsehoods surrounding the wartime labor issue through factual evidence.

2019-07-02
Lee Woo-yeon, a researcher at South Korea’s Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research who studies the wage system of so-called wartime requisitioned workers and other laborers from the Korean Peninsula, at a symposium to be held on the 2nd at the United Nations Office at Geneva

Because monthly magazines and books that I had to read had piled up in great numbers, I had recently not felt inclined to read newspapers.
But today’s Sankei Shimbun had many articles that ought to be read.
“The discrimination against wartime Korean laborers is a lie.”
A South Korean researcher to make the case at the United Nations.
It became known on the 1st what the main points would be of the remarks to be delivered by Lee Woo-yeon, a researcher at South Korea’s Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research who studies the wage system of so-called wartime requisitioned workers and other laborers from the Korean Peninsula, at a symposium to be held on the 2nd at the United Nations Office at Geneva.
Regarding the ethnic discrimination said within South Korea to have existed in the treatment of Japanese and Koreans in coal mines, he asserts that it is “an outright lie,” and appeals that “South Korean and Japanese researchers and journalists who distort history should stop their irresponsible words and actions.”　
At the symposium, Mr. Lee will also report the results of his investigation into the reality of wage differences between Koreans and Japanese, based on such materials as wage ledgers from coal mines of the time.
He says that there were also coal mines where the wages of Korean coal miners were 4.2 times those of teachers working on the Korean Peninsula.　
Mr. Lee explains that coal miners were treated favorably in terms of wages even compared with Japanese engaged in other occupations.
Against the image, spread through South Korean films and the like, of “emaciated Korean laborers,” he counters that “if one looks at photographs from the time, they were healthy, robust, and dignified.”　
The symposium will be held as a related event of the ongoing United Nations Human Rights Council session.
A testimony video produced by the Hashima Island Residents’ Association for Pursuing the Truth of History, made up of former residents of Hashima in Nagasaki City, also known as Gunkanjima, will also be shown.