The Statue of Peace, often shortened to Sonyeosang in Korean or Shōjo-zō in Japanese and sometimes called the Comfort Woman Statue , is a symbol of the victims of sexual slavery, known euphemistically as comfort women, by the Japanese military during World War II. The Statue of Peace was first erected in Seoul to urge the Japanese government to apologize to and honour the victims. However, it has since become a site of representational battles among different parties.

Comfort women were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese ianfu (慰安婦), which literally means "comforting, consoling woman". During World War II, Japanese troops forced hundreds of thousands of women from Australia, Burma, China, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, and other countries into sexual enslavement for Japanese troops; however, the majority of the women were from Korea. Many women died or committed suicide due to brutal mistreatment and sustained physical and emotional distress. After the war, Japan's acknowledgment of the comfort women's plight was minimal, lacking a full apology and appropriate restitution, which damaged Japan's reputation in Asia for decades. Only in the 1990s did the Japanese government begin to officially apologize and offer compensation.