South Korea marked its first “memorial day” on Tuesday for girls and women forced to work in Japan’s wartime brothels, with both of the U.S. allies expressing concern that the emotionally charged issue could undermine their relations.

Under a 2015 deal, Japan apologised to the “comfort women”, its euphemism for women – many of them Korean – forced to work in its wartime brothels, and provided a 1 billion yen (now £7 million) fund to help them.

But South Korea has recently sought to revisit the issue.

“I hope that this issue will not lead to a diplomatic dispute between Korea and Japan. Nor do I see this is an issue that can be solved through diplomatic solutions between the two countries,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in comments marking the first “Memorial Day for Japanese Forces’ Comfort Women Victims”.

“It is an issue that can be solved only when the world, including ourselves and Japan, deeply reflects on sexual violence against all women and human rights problems and comes to a strong awareness and learns a lesson in a way that prevents this from ever repeating again.”

Japan insists the issue was resolved by the 2015 deal, struck with a previous, conservative South Korean administration.

A senior Japanese official said differences with South Korea on the matter could undermine efforts to “develop a future-oriented relationship”.

“We are concerned that this may spoil such endeavours,” said the Japanese official, who declined to be identified.

“We have reached out through diplomatic channels to stress the importance of steadily implementing the Japan-South Korea agreement,” the official said, referring to the 2015 deal.

The bitterness over Japan’s wartime actions comes as concern about North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and missiles has posed a threat to both South Korea and Japan, both of which play host to U.S. military bases.

Moon’s administration has spotlighted the issue and has called for Japan to do more, despite backing down in January from a demand to formally renegotiate the 2015 deal.

In March, Moon described Japan’s wartime use of the women as a crime against humanity. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called the remarks “extremely regrettable”.

TAIWAN PROTEST

A monument was unveiled as part of the events to mark the day, chosen as it was on Aug. 14, 1991, that South Korean comfort woman victim Kim Hak-sun became the first to give public testimony about her experience.

A think-tank funded by the South Korean government devoted to researching the issue also opened this month.

Japan has protested over monuments in South Korea dedicated to the women, including one in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, as well as the decision to designate a day to remember the women.

The issue has been a regular source of animosity between Japan and neighbours including China, North and South Korea and Taiwan, where earlier on Tuesday, more than 50 activists protested in front of Japan’s representative office.

“Japanese government should apologise,” chanted the protesters, many wearing black shirts with their faces covered by white masks. They also demanded compensation for Taiwan women forced to work in the brothels.

A bronze statue symbolising comfort women was also unveiled in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan, the United Daily News reported.

The unveiling was attended by former President Ma Ying-jeou.

Japan colonised the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945 and occupied parts of China before and during the war.

“It is quite regrettable to witness statues of comfort women being established or displayed in various parts of the world, which is incompatible with the position and measures taken by our government,” the Japanese official said.

Tunisia’s president on Monday proposed giving women equal inheritance rights despite protests from thousands of people objecting to any challenge to Islamic law.

The North African Muslim country, which toppled autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, grants women more rights than other countries in the region, and since last year has allowed Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.

But demonstrating how society remains divided, thousands demonstrated on Saturday in front of parliament against any changes to inheritance rules.

The current system is based on Islamic law which typically allows men to inherit double what a woman would receive.

“I propose equality inheritance to become law,” President Beji Caid Essebsi said in a speech.

But in the face of the opposition from conservatives, he left the door open for some exceptions, saying families who wished to continue the allocation based on Islamic law would be able to do so.

Parliament now needs to decide on a bill.

Thousands of women and men rallied in central Tunis in the evening to demand a law granting women equal heritage rights.

Tunisia is ruled by a coalition of moderate Islamists and secular forces which have been managing its democratic transition since 2011, avoiding the upheaval seen in Egypt, Libya or Syria.

They had agreed in 2014 on a constitution granting far-reaching political rights, limiting the role of religion and holding free elections, which stands out in a region often run by autocrats.

But one of the few areas where the Islamists have resisted change is the inheritance law.

To break the standoff Essebsi, a secular politician, had in August 2017 set up a committee to draft proposals to advance women’s rights, winning praise from secular-minded women.

While Tunisia has been hailed as the only “Arab Spring” success story economic growth has been disappointing, however, with high unemployment driving many young Tunisians abroad who had joined the uprising.

France voted to outlaw sexual harassment on the streets, leaving cat-callers and aggressively lecherous individuals facing potential on-the-spot fines of up to 750 euros as part of tougher legislation to fight sexual violence.

Lawmakers approved the law in a second reading late on Wednesday, days after outrage erupted in France after a man attacked a young woman, Marie Laguerre, when she responded to lewd noises he made at her outside a Paris cafe.

“Harassment in the street has previously not been punished. From now on, it will be,” Marlene Schiappa, gender equality minister and architect of the new legislation, told Europe 1 radio on Thursday.

An early draft of the bill had said that minors under 15 would be assumed not to have given consent to sex with an older person. But the new law states that sex between an adult and a person of 15 or under can be considered rape if the younger party was judged not competent to give consent.

France’s highest legal authority, the Conseil d’Etat, had advised that the previous version could be ruled unconstitutional.

The legislation will also give underage victims of rape an extra ten years to file complaints, extending the deadline to 30 years from when they turn 18.

Some critics say the harassment measures will mark an end to French romance. Schiappa last year told Reuters the government was not looking to stamp out flirtatious behaviour and “kill the culture of the ‘French lover'”.

“What’s key is … that the laws of the French republic forbid insulting, intimidating, threatening and following women in public spaces,” Schiappa said on Thursday.

Schiappa said France needed to stop tolerating sexual harassment and violence like the attack on Laguerre last week. Laguerre, 22, was punched by a passer by when she told him to “shut up” after he wolf-whistled at her.

Laguerre has received praise from the French public and abroad for her courage in standing up to her aggressor. She has created a website ‘Nous Toutes Harcelement’ (We are all harassed) for other victims of sexual harassment to recount their stories.

Around 1,300 Danes marched through Copenhagen on Wednesday in protest at a new ban on the wearing of face veils in public, accusing the government of infringing on women’s right to dress as they choose.

Denmark’s parliament enacted the ban in May, joining France and some other European Union countries to uphold what some politicians say are secular and democratic values.

The protesters, many wearing the niqab veil or the all-enveloping, body-length burqa, marched from the central, left-wing district of Norrebro to Bellahoj police station on the outskirts of the capital. They formed a human chain around the station and then marched back to Norrebro before dispersing.

Demonstrators, often with children in tow, chanted “no racists in our streets” and “my life, my choice” during the three-hour rally. No incidents were reported.

The marchers included non-niqab-wearing Muslim women and non-Muslim Danes with faces covered.

“We need to send a signal to the government that we will not bow to discrimination and a law that specifically targets a religious minority,” Sabina, 21, a niqab-garbed student, told Reuters, asking that her full name not be used.

She is one of about 150-200 Muslim women – 0.1 percent of those in the country – who daily wear either the niqab or burqa garments covering the face or the entire body. Muslims account for around 5 per cent of Denmark’s 5.7 million population.

Under the law, police will be able to instruct women to remove their veils or order them to leave public areas. Justice Minister Soren Pape Poulsen said officers would fine them and tell them to go home.

Fines will range from 1,000 Danish crowns (121.87 pounds) for a first offence to 10,000 crowns for a fourth.

DISCRIMINATORY, CRITICS SAY

Despite its generic wording, the legislation is being widely interpreted as discriminating against Denmark’s Muslims and violating women’s right to freedom of expression and religion.

Critics, noting the tiny number of Muslim women in Denmark who actually wear a niqab, regard the law as largely a sop to increased anti-immigrant sentiment in the Nordic country.

“If the intention of this law was to protect women’s rights, it fails abjectly,” said Fotis Filippou, deputy Europe director of human rights group Amnesty International. “Instead, the law criminalises women for their choice of clothing – making a mockery of the freedoms Denmark purports to uphold.”

Police said none of the veiled protesters would be penalised since certain uses of face veils, such as to exercise freedom of speech as part of a peaceful protest, are exempt from the law.

The justice ministry explained that the ban would focus on women forced by their families to wear veils, though it has been faulted for vagueness in stipulating who would fall foul of it.

Danish Police Union chief Claus Oxfeldt said he would have preferred more comprehensive guidance on how to enforce the ban.

“We need as thorough guidance as possible so we don’t end up in situations where (police officers) don’t 100 per cent know how to act,” he said.

As an example, he was unsure whether Asian tourists wearing anti-pollution masks would be covered by the ban.

France – with the largest Muslim community in the EU – as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria, have all imposed some curbs on face veils in public.

France’s controversial 2011 ban added to a broader sense of alienation felt by many Muslims and some evidence surfaced that it encouraged assaults in the street on women wearing still legal headscarves as well.

Hundreds of women took to the streets in the Tunisian capital on Saturday to demand equal inheritance rights as men, a subject often seen as taboo in the Arab world.

The North African Muslim country grants women more rights than other countries in the region, and since last year has allowed Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.

But the protestors marching to the parliament building in Tunis on Saturday said they wanted to be compared with European women and to be entitled to the same inheritance rights.

Joined by some men, they carried slogans such as “In a civil state I take exactly what you take”, demanding an end to inheritance laws based on Islamic law. This usually grants men the double of what women get.

“It is true that Tunisian women have more rights compared to other Arab women but we want to be compared with European women,” said Kaouther Boulila, an activist.

“We just want our rights.”

In August, President Beji Caid Essbsi, a secular politician, set up a committee to draft proposals to advance women’s rights.

Tunisia has been hailed as the only “Arab spring” success story following political freedoms introduced after the ousting of autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

Economic growth has been disappointing, however, with high unemployment driving many young Tunisians who had joined the uprising, abroad.