A recent campaign by Amnesty International to highlight the claims of former ''comfort women'' in Europe has made some progress, although it remains to be seen how far the issue will rise up the political agenda.
     While the former sex slaves received the backing of the Dutch Parliament during AI's campaign, progress has, so far, been less substantial in the European Parliament and in Britain.
     Despite this, organizers of the recent speaking tour -- which involved three ''comfort women'' visiting The Hague, Berlin, Brussels and London -- feel their efforts have put the issue on the agenda on a continent largely unaware of the matter.
     Estimates suggest that in the 1930s and 1940s around 200,000 women were forced by the Japanese military to provide sex for its soldiers. The women, mainly from the Asian countries Japan occupied during the war, were euphemistically known as ''comfort women.''
     The victims say Japan's apology in the 1990s was insufficient and are calling for a more fulsome one issued through the country's parliament.
     They also want Japan to pay compensation for their suffering, although Tokyo argues all reparations were settled through various postwar treaties.
     Following support from the U.S. House of Representatives in July and conscious of the fact that Tokyo cares a lot about its international image, AI decided to stage the European speaking tour to keep up the pressure and highlight the issue of sexual violence in conflict.
     The human rights group has been working on the matter since 2004 and is anxious to press the women's cause, as many of them are now very old.
     The tour got off to a good start when the lower house of the Dutch Parliament unanimously passed a motion calling on Japan to fully apologize and offer compensation. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has said he will raise the matter with his Japanese counterpart.
     The women then headed to Berlin and Brussels, where they gave powerful testimonies and received considerable international media coverage.
     Their case has been taken up by Jean Lambert, a Green member of the European Parliament. She is trying to get a motion submitted at a session of the entire 785-member Parliament on Dec. 13.
     The motion will essentially call for Japan to properly apologize and provide compensation. If the motion is admitted to the Parliament, a vote will take place. This would probably be one of the most important verdicts on Japan's handling of the issue, given the fact that the European Union now represents 27 countries.
     However, in order to get the motion on the agenda, Lambert needs the support of all the political groups in the Parliament, and the center-right European People's Party and European Democrats have, so far, failed to show much enthusiasm.
     Lambert believes the group may not think the matter is as important as other pressing human rights issues which could be debated, or they feel that relations with Japan should not be soured by longstanding sores.
     Either way, Lambert says that although the issue stems from World War II, it has lots of contemporary relevance.
     ''If you look at the situation in Darfur, women are being used in conflicts. It's an ongoing issue,'' she told Kyodo News. ''The EU talks a lot about human rights and equality and this case resonates with those values.''
     Lambert has also written to the European Union's executive body, the Commission, asking what it can do on the ''comfort women'' issue.
     During the European tour, AI held demonstrations outside Japan's embassies with slogans like ''After 62 years...still waiting for justice.'' Protesters also handed out postcards urging people to write to their European parliamentary representatives calling for action.
     In the future, AI plans to urge its members to write to the ''comfort women'' in a show of international solidarity, rather than send messages to Japanese embassies, which are generally ignored.
     At the various speaking tours the three frail women have moved audiences with their accounts of being forced to provide sexual services to Japanese troops.
     Gil Won Ok, 80, from South Korea, told a London audience how she had to provide sex for a succession of soldiers and was beaten if they were not satisfied.
     ''I had my first period, but they didn't give me a break as they were too busy satisfying themselves. I was full of blood. I had so much pain,'' she said.
     And in an impassioned plea, she added, ''I have come here to get your help and get justice. If you don't support me, we won't get the apology before we die.''
     ''How could (the Japanese troops) treat us like beasts? We have been waiting for an answer for 62 years,'' said Dutchwoman Ellen van der Ploeg, who was captured in Indonesia.
     ''The Japanese always say all we want is money, but I don't want it. I want an official apology. They have to come out and say 'it was cruel and it was our fault,''' she said.
     ''I want to break free from this issue.''
     One Amnesty official, who was moderating the speaking event, said, ''We want Japan to say 'We did it. We were wrong. We accept responsibility.'''
     She added that the current apology from Japan was a bit like saying ''I punched you. I'm sure that it hurt you.''
     During the London leg, AI officials detected a general lack of interest in the matter among the public and media. However, they met British government and parliamentary representatives and hope that both will raise the matter, although no guarantees were forthcoming.
     Their campaign received a significant boost in July when the U.S. House of Representatives passed a nonbinding resolution calling on Japan to ''formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner'' for coercing women into sexual slavery.
     Japan maintains it has repeatedly apologized and that it abides by the 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono acknowledging a state role in the wartime brothel program and offering a formal apology.
==Kyodo