A university research institute has been commissioned by the South Korean government to build a comprehensive database of documents related to the "comfort women" issue, Yonhap news agency reported Sunday.

The request was made by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Affairs in 2012, when Lee Myung-bak was president, the report said. It asked the Korean History Research Institute of Korea University to set up a database covering domestic and foreign official documents, news articles and records of the victims, among other items.

The term comfort women is Japan's euphemism for the girls and women who were forced to work in Japan's military brothels before and during World War II.