(Yonhap)

Fans of actor Song Joong-ki made a donation to help Korean sex slave victims ahead of the upcoming release of Song’s latest film “Battleship Island.”

House of Sharing, a nursing home for living “comfort women” located in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, said Wednesday that fan groups of the actor from Korea and elsewhere donated 12 million won ($10,533) in the name of “Song Joong-ki fan union.”

The film, a historical flick set in Japan’s Hashima Island where a forced labor camp was located during the Japanese colonial era, tells the story of 400 Korean workers who risked their lives in an attempt to escape from the island. It is scheduled to hit local theaters on July 26.

The donation ahead of the release of the film was to console the victims of forced labor by the Japanese including sexual slavery.

In October 2016, Song made a donation of 20 million won ($17,700) to the organization while filming for the movie.

(CJ Entertainment)

Comfort women is a euphemism for young women and girls who were forcibly taken to front-line military brothels by the Imperial Japanese army during World War II. Historians estimate more than 200,000 Asian women, mostly Koreans, were forced to work into sexual slavery during the war.

Korea has long been urging Japan to make a sincere apology and recognize its legal responsibility for the war-time wrongdoing.

Former President Park Geun-hye struck a controversial deal on the comfort women with Japan in 2015. The deal, however, has been criticized in Korea as it was hastily arranged without sufficiently listening to the opinions of the victims.

By Kim So-yeon (syk19372@heraldcorp.com)