Activists have launched a campaign to introduce a United Nations-proclaimed day to remember wartime sex slaves, known as comfort women, and end sexual assaults against women in wartime.

They are targeting the date of Aug. 14, when Kim Hak Sun, a victim of sex slavery under the Japanese military, came forward in Seoul in 1991 under her own name to demand that Japan take responsibility for its actions.

"We hope the hardships the comfort women went through will be a memory for the whole world, although attempts to gloss over Japan's wartime atrocities still continue," said Mina Watanabe, co-representative of Japan Action for Resolution of the "Comfort Women" Issue.