Efforts to preserve and pass on the memories of the "comfort women" have become more urgent as the victims of wartime sexual violence age.
An international alliance of nongovernmental organizations filed an application in May to have over 2,700 comfort women-related documents listed in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, while a project that digitizes audiovisual records of those forced into wartime Japanese military brothels is underway in Tokyo.
"It would be a great loss to the world if the memories and records of former sex slaves vanish," said Mina Watanabe, secretary-general of the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, or WAM. "We hope to enshrine them in history forever."