South Korea has a plan to end its forced-labour feud with Japan

Yang Geum-deok, a child of 1940s Korea, dreamed of being a teacher. When her head teacher suggested she should study in Japan, the country’s colonial ruler, she enthusiastically agreed. Aged only 13, she forged the necessary documents and left her home in South Jeolla province. She was promptly dispatched not to the promised school in Japan, but to an aeroplane factory run by Mitsubishi, a Japanese conglomerate. “I was worked almost to death and never paid,” she recalls. Her last hope, she says, is that “the offenders will offer a sincere apology before I die”.