Outgoing U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay expressed regret Wednesday that Japan has "failed to pursue a comprehensive, impartial and lasting resolution" to the issue of so-called comfort women.
"This is not an issue relegated to history. It is a current issue, as human rights violations against these women continue to occur as long as their rights to justice and reparation are not realized," the U.N. high commissioner for human rights said in a statement.
Pillay also criticized Japan's review, made in June, of the process that led to the Kono statement regarding Asian women who were forced to work in Japan's wartime military brothels.
The statement, issued in 1993 by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, offered an apology to the women, acknowledging the military's involvement in setting up "comfort stations" and the use of coercion in recruiting women to provide sex for Japanese soldiers before and during World War II.
The report from the June review concluded that Japan and South Korea coordinated on the wording of the landmark apology and said that, at the request of Seoul, Tokyo stipulated coercion was involved in recruiting comfort women.
Pillay, whose six-year term ends at the end of the month, welcomed Japan's engagement on the issue of sexual violence in conflict zones, and called on the government "to pursue a comprehensive, impartial and lasting resolution of the wartime sexual slavery issue with the same vigor."