In May 2012, officials in Bergen County's borough of Palisades Park, New Jersey rejected requests by two diplomatic delegations from Japan to remove a small monument from a public park, a brass plaque on a block of stone, dedicated in 2010 to the memory of comfort women, thousands of women, many Koreans, who were forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II. Days later, a South Korean delegation endorsed the borough's decision. However, in neighboring Fort Lee, various Korean American groups could not reach consensus on the design and wording for such a monument as of early April 2013. In October 2012, a similar memorial was announced in nearby Hackensack, to be raised behind the Bergen County Courthouse, alongside memorials to the Holocaust, the Great Irish Famine, the Armenian genocide, and Slavery in the United States and was unveiled in March 2013. An apology and monetary compensation of roughly $8,000,000 by Japan to South Korea in December 2015 for these crimes largely fell flat in Bergen County, where the first U.S. monument to pay respects to comfort women was erected.