Human rights group Amnesty International Friday joined the struggle of around 1,000 surviving "comfort women" from Korea, the Philippines and Holland to demand compensation from Japan for sexual slavery suffered during World War II.

"This issue has been waiting for 60 years to be adequately addressed in a way that satisfies these women's call for justice," said Purna Sen, Asia-Pacific director for Amnesty International.

Amnesty, in a report launched Friday titled "Still Waiting After 60 Years", argued that the Japanese government's past claims to have no responsibility to compensate former comfort women has no legal basis under international law.

Japan has argued that it has already paid post-war reparations under bilateral treaties reached with various Asian countries it invaded and occupied during World War II.

Recently released documents in Seoul, however, have revealed that the issue of comfort women was never included in the 1965 reparations treaty signed between South Korea and Japan, said Shin Hei-soo, a South Korean activist for comfort women.

Shin noted that North Korea has never signed a reparations treaty with Japan, so comfort women reparations remains an unresolved bilateral issue between the two countries.

Japan forced an estimated 200,000 women from North and South Korea, the Philippines and Dutch expats in Indonesia into sexual slavery during World War II, of whom less than 1,000 are still alive and fighting for reparations.

Amnesty, in its report, argued that under international law a state that commits war crimes such as sexual slavery, has a legal obligation to pay reparations to both the country of the survivors and the survivors themselves.

"Many of us grandmothers are getting older and one by one we pass away. I guess Japan wants to see us all die because with our deaths the issue will be over," said Lee Yong-soo, 77, who as a 16 year-old girl was kidnapped from South Korea and shipped to Taiwan to service the 300 Japanese sailors on board with four other Korean girls.

Lee, who is one of a handful of South Korean women who demonstrate for reparations outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul every Wednesday, said she would never give up her struggle for an official apology from Japan with full reparations.

"The Japanese government should kneel in front of us and apologize. I want to live to 200 to see Japan repent and pay compensation for my ruined life," said Lee.

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