Last year's riders in Pittsburgh, via 3A Project.
A pair of Korean cyclists touring the US to raise awareness of "comfort women" will again pass through Pittsburgh this summer, according to a press release yesterday.
Two South Korean college students will set out on a trans-American bicycle ride this week, seeking to boost global awareness of Korean women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II.
The students — 25-year-old Baek Hyun-jae and 22-year-old Lee Ho-jun — recently arrived in Los Angeles with their bicycles ahead of their ambitious bid to cross the United States on bike in 80 days.
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The students said their cross-country bicycle ride is primarily aimed at publicizing the issue of comfort women as an infringement on the human rights of all women throughout the U.S.A different pair rode through the US last year and stopped in Pittsburgh in August.
They argue that the tragedy of comfort women is no longer a political and diplomatic issue limited to South Korea and Japan. The comfort women issue has been one of the biggest sources of conflict between Seoul and Tokyo, as the latter has refused to officially apologize or compensate the Korean victims.
“We have chosen the U.S., not Japan, as the destination of our cross-country trip in order to publicize the issue of comfort women as a violation of women’s human rights. The U.S., as a third-party country, is expected to genuinely recognize the issue of women’s rights,” said Lee, who studies political science at Incheon National University in Incheon, west of Seoul.