US Comfort Women Statue Group Searches for Alternative Site
Lost Home After 3 Years of Installation
"Looking for a Better Location"
The 'Statue of Peace' installed near Washington DC to raise awareness about the issue of Japanese military comfort women has lost its place to stay.
According to Yonhap News on the 5th (local time), the Washington Statue of Peace is currently kept at the home of a member of the 'Washington Hope Butterfly' organization. The statue was originally installed in a building in Annandale, Virginia, near Washington DC, but it has now been dismantled.
The statue was made in Korea and arrived in the United States in November 2016. Washington Hope Butterfly, which promoted its establishment, intended to install the statue in the US capital, Washington DC.
However, they could not find a suitable site to install the statue, and as a result, the statue remained unseen for three years while stored in a warehouse. Upon learning of this situation, a Korean American offered the front yard of their building, and finally, in October 2019, the statue found a place in a Korean town in Virginia.
The 'Statue of Peace in Washington' installed in the front yard of a building in Annandale, Virginia, USA, before its removal. [Image source=Yonhap News]
However, it has been reported that a business occupying the first floor of the building recently decided to use the front yard where the statue was installed. Accordingly, Washington Hope Butterfly began searching for an alternative site.
As the process of finding a new site prolonged, the organization eventually moved the statue to the yard of a member’s home on the 2nd. The statue is expected to stay here temporarily and will be reinstalled once a replacement site is found.
Regarding this, Cho Hyun-sook, the representative of Washington Hope Butterfly, told Yonhap News, "There are people who have offered a place, but those locations were inconvenient for people to pass by or not very visible. We are looking for a better place."
She also added that the building owner who had provided the site until recently was very supportive of the statue and that there was no political pressure to remove it.
Meanwhile, the statue measures 200 cm in width, 160 cm in length, and 123 cm in height, identical in size and form to the statue installed opposite the former Japanese Embassy in Seoul.
The statue went through a turbulent period before being installed. In 2017, it was planned to be erected at Salisbury University in Maryland, and a date for the unveiling was set, but the university notified an indefinite postponement just one month before the ceremony.
Later, at the end of October 2019, it was finally installed in Annandale, a representative Korean town in Virginia. At that time, about 100 Virginia government officials and Korean residents attended a grand unveiling ceremony.
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