(CHINA DAILY)

Wan Aihua, an 82-year-old former Chinese "comfort woman," will appeal to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) later this month to pressure the Japanese Government to issue an apology to her and other women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during World War II.

Wan is the first Chinese woman to use her real name when accusing Japanese invaders of crimes during the war. She has lost three earlier lawsuits in Japan since her first appeal in 1992.

The Japanese army forcibly sent as many as 200,000 women, mainly from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea, China and the Philippines, to wartime Japanese military brothels to work as sex slaves in the 1930s and 1940s.

Although the Japanese Government acknowledged the army was involved "directly or indirectly" in sexual slavery, it refused to compensate the victims.

Wan wrote to former Japanese prime ministers Yasuo Fukuda and Yukio Hatoyama, asking for apologies and compensation to former "comfort women," but has received no response.