An overlooked issue in much of the discussion of comfort women is whether former comfort women in allied and occupied countries had adequate freedom to decide whether to accept compensation and/or assistance from the Asian Women's Fund. It appears that they were intimidated in South Korea not to accept assistance from the Asian Women's Fund. Despite the financial generosity of the South Korean government's own fund for former comfort women, the South Korean government and NGOs used it and other means as instruments of pressure and intimidation against Korean women who otherwise would have sought assistance from the Asian Women's Fund in 1997.