Unesco review finds Japan's account of forced labor at Sado mines insufficient
A draft decision says Tokyo still falls short in fully presenting wartime forced labor at the site ahead of the gathering in July.
The photo, taken by Prof. Seo Kyung-deok, shows a tunnel inside Japan's Sado mines, which was inscribed as a Unesco World Heritage Site in July 2024.
SCREEN CAPTURE
Japan faces renewed scrutiny from Unesco over its account of the wartime forced labor of Korean workers at a gold mine on Sado Island.
The review will unfold at a World Heritage Committee session Korea is hosting for the first time later this month.
A draft decision, released on Wednesday finds that Tokyo's efforts to present the "whole history" of the Sado Island Gold Mines — including the Korean laborers who worked there during World War II — remain incomplete, a status Seoul characterizes as "insufficient."
The committee has requested that Japan submit another progress report by Dec. 1, 2027, pushing a fuller review to 2028, according to a senior Korean Foreign Ministry official familiar with the text.
The setting adds a unique geopolitical wrinkle.
Korea is hosting the committee for the first time since joining the convention in 1988, and this year’s chairperson is former Korean Ambassador to Unesco Lee Byong-hyun.
Having completed its four-year term on the World Heritage Committee in 2025, Japan holds none of the panel's 21 seats, leaving Tokyo without a vote at the main decision-making table, though it can still address the committee directly as a party under review.
The Sado mines, on an island off Japan's Niigata Prefecture, were added to the World Heritage List in July 2024 after a lengthy dispute.
Japan sought recognition mainly for the site's Edo-period (1603-1868) mining techniques. Seoul objected, arguing the nomination glossed over the mine's use of 1,500 to 2,000 Korean laborers — conscripted under Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule — during the war under dangerous conditions.
Seoul dropped its objections after Japan pledged to "faithfully and thoroughly" exhibit that history in close consultation with Korea and hold annual memorial services.
However, Tokyo followed through only in part.
While an exhibition opened at the Aikawa History Museum near the mine, disputes over Tokyo's historical sincerity led Korean officials to boycott joint memorial services for two consecutive years, holding separate ceremonies instead.
The new decision acknowledges Japan with developing some additional presentation measures but notes that "further clarification is needed" on how it comprehensively addresses the mine's full history at the site level. The Foreign Ministry official said the draft recommends Japan continue close consultations with Korea to improve the exhibits — a stance Seoul interprets as validating its concerns.
On the ground, changes have been modest.
Earlier this year, Japan installed over 10 signposts directing visitors to former Korean dormitory and kitchen sites, according to the official. The signs, however, describe them as having been used by "workers from the Korean Peninsula," avoiding any reference to forced labor.
Kang Dong-jin, a professor in the Department of Urban Planning at Kyungsung University who chairs the National Heritage Commission's World Heritage Subcommittee, described the situation as "compliance without remembrance" in a recent contribution to the Korea JoongAng Daily.
Following a recent site visit, Kang wrote that the history of Korean forced labor remains "peripheral" to the site's main narrative.
Under standard Unesco procedure, a draft decision like this is adopted by consensus unless a member state proposes formal amendments.
Tokyo has consistently resisted the specific term "forced labor" to describe the mine's wartime work force, a position it has also maintained in a separate, unresolved dispute over the on-site presentation of Korean laborers at its Meiji-era industrial sites, inscribed in 2015.
BY SEO JI-EUN [[email protected]]
