'Comfort Women' Statue In Brookhaven Will Be Relocated

BROOKHAVEN, GA -- Brookhaven's controversial statue marking the sexual slavery of tens of thousands of girls and women during World War II is getting a new home, the city announced Wednesday. The Young Girl’s Statue for Peace will be moved to the main Blackburn Park at 3493 Ashford-Dunwoody Road, the city's most prominent park, according to the Brookhaven and the Atlanta Comfort Women Memorial Task Force.

The statue was unveiled on June 30 in the second and smaller part of Blackburn Park, witnessed by a crowd of hundreds. Brookhaven's decision to erect the statue in the second park, known as Blackburn Park II, made it the first city in Georgia and the Deep South to build a monument to commemorate the Comfort Women. (To get notified of more local news like this, click here to sign up for the BrookhavenPatch. Or find your Atlanta-area town here. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

Watch the video:

“We applaud the City of Brookhaven’s decision to help bring greater awareness to the Comfort Women tragedy through the more prominent placement of the Young Girl’s Statue for Peace,” Baik Kyu Kim, chair of the Atlanta Comfort Women Memorial Task Force, said in a news release. “The City Council has been a leader in taking a very strong stand against human and sex trafficking. We are grateful for their proactive move to provide greater accessibility to the memorial.”

Read more: Brookhaven erects 'Comfort Women' statue

The memorial honors what city officials call the largest known cases of human and sex trafficking in modern times. More than 200,000 girls and women, known as the "Comfort Women," were trafficked for sex in Asia by the Japanese Imperial Army.

Much of the trafficking took place under the guise of the Recreation and Amusement Association, a Japanese government front organization that made it its mission to satiate the "sex-starved soldiers" of the American military, which had become occupiers.

The statue has not been without controversy: Brookhaven leaders have been inundated with emails -- as has this writer -- about the Comfort Women issue as many Japanese see American acceptance of the idea as an affront to its friendship and propaganda spread by South Korea.

“As the City Council has learned more about the Comfort Women tragedy, it is only fitting to place the ‘Young Girl’s Statue for Peace’ in one of the most prominent locations within Brookhaven,” said Brookhaven Mayor John Ernst. “With tens of thousands of people visiting the main Blackburn Park each year, more people will have an opportunity to learn about this era and become aware of the ongoing problems of sexual and human trafficking taking place in metro Atlanta and the world today.”

The memorial will be relocated within the next 30 days, the city said.

“The new venue will better accommodate those who wish to visit the statue," Ernst said. The primary Blackburn Park offers greater space, more parking and increased accessibility for what will surely become a landmark in our city.”

Images via Craig Johnson / Patch