Sado gold mine gains UNESCO status after Tokyo pledges to exhibit WWII trauma of Korean laborers

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The UNESCO World Heritage Committee decided in September to register Japan’s controversial Sado gold mine as a cultural heritage site, after the country agreed to include it in an exhibit of its dark history of abusing Korean laborers during World War II.

The decision signaled an improvement in ties between Tokyo and Seoul.

The mine on an island off the coast of Niigata in northern Japan operated for nearly 400 years and was once the world’s largest gold producer before closing in 1989. It was also linked to Japan’s wartime abuse of Korean laborers.

Committee members, including South Korea, gave unanimous support to the listing at the annual meeting in New Delhi, India. They said Japan provided additional information, made all necessary amendments to the plan, and consulted with South Korea over the mine’s wartime history.

The Japanese delegate told the meeting that Japan has installed new exhibition material “to explain the severe conditions of Korean laborers’ work and remember their hardship.”

Japan acknowledged that thousands of Koreans were sent to the mine shaft under harsh conditions. They were subjected to dangerous tasks involving long hours, brutal working environments, nearly no days off, inadequate food rations, and severe mistreatment, which caused some to die. Many workers suffered from malnutrition, disease, and accidents, with little to no regard for their well-being.

A memorial service for all the workers at the Sado Island gold mines will be held annually at the site, Japanese officials said.

The South Korean delegation said the country expected Japan to keep its pledge to be truthful to history and to show “both the bright and dark side” of the Sado mine in order to help improve relations over the long term.

Japan had to demonstrate a commitment to face its wartime atrocities in order to gain support from South Korea, which had opposed the UNESCO bid because of the wartime abuse of Korean laborers.

Such disputes over history have consistently strained bilateral ties. Seoul has said some Koreans brought to Japan during its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula were put to forced labor at the mine.

Historians say Japan used hundreds of thousands of Korean laborers, including those forcibly brought from the Korean Peninsula, at Japanese mines and factories to make up for labor shortages, as most working-age men were sent to battlefronts across Asia and the Pacific. Sado was among them.

Japan’s government has long been criticized for its reluctance to discuss wartime atrocities, including the sexual abuse of Asian women known as “comfort women” and Korean forced laborers.

Japanese authorities have hailed the Sado Island mine for advancements in mining technology before and after industrialization but made no mention of its connection to the abuse of Korean laborers during WWII.

Japan initially hoped to get the Sado Island mine listed as a World Heritage site last year but filed documents that were deemed insufficient and needed more information.

The International Council on Monuments and Sites, which advises the UNESCO committee, in June called on Japan to give a fuller account of the Sado mines. However, the requested information pertained to technical details, unrelated to opposing views regarding the mines’ wartime history.

Another controversial Japanese site was granted UNESCO recognition in 2015. Gunkanjima, or Battleship Island, in Nagasaki prefecture, was a former coal mine site recognized as important to the Meiji Industrial Revolution in Japan. The island became a symbol of the suffering endured by Koreans under Japanese colonial rule.

South Korea protested that the site omitted mention of Koreans toiling on the island, which triggered a UNESCO decision urging Japan to present a more balanced history.

Over the years, Korean forced laborers and their descendants have pursued legal action against the Japanese government and companies that benefited from forced labor during the colonial period.

The lawsuits have sought compensation and official apologies. In some cases, South Korean courts have ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering Japanese companies to pay damages. However, Japan has typically rejected these rulings, arguing that all claims were settled under the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and South Korea, which normalized diplomatic relations and included financial settlements.