Kim Bok-dong, a prominent survivor of Japanese wartime brothels, said this week she intends to donate her life’s assets to pro-North Korea schools in Japan. File Photo by Elizabeth Shim/UPI

Nov. 23 (UPI) -- A former "comfort woman" who is battling cancer has donated more than $26,000 to pro-North Korea schools in Japan.

Kim Bok-dong, a prominent survivor who has called on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to apologize directly to women brutalized by Japan's wartime military, said she intends to donate another $17,000, South Korean news service Tongil News reported.


The $26,000 donation was made on Wednesday, while Kim remained confined to a hospital bed.

"Cheer up, compatriots in Japan," Kim said. "I will give away my life's assets to support you."

Kim, a household name in South Korea, has said she was forcibly recruited into Japanese wartime brothels when she was 15. She repeatedly suffered rape in "comfort" stations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia and was subsequently unable to bear children.

Kim, a South Korean citizen, said the schools that support the regime in Pyongyang are places that are educating "talented people."

"When North and South are unified and a path to peace opens, I will call on Korean residents of Japan who hate living there to return" to the homeland, Kim said, according to Tongil News.

Kim, who is in her nineties, said the donations would make Abe realize "he has lost."

"'You've lost, so surrender,' I will proclaim from Korean schools in Japan," she said. "Koreans should learn Korean history, it is nonsense they should have to learn Japanese history."

In 2014, Kim donated about $44,000 to Korean schools in Japan, where North Korean history is taught and portraits of North Korean leaders hang on classroom walls.

Despite her condition, Kim also staged a one-woman rally in Seoul in 2018, calling for the disbandment of a comfort women's fund.

Seoul's ministry of gender equality and family said this week the fund would be officially closed.