Nongovernmental organizations began a five-day people's tribunal Friday in Tokyo to clarify the criminal role of the government and Japanese soldiers in regards to violence against women during the war.

The Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery will hear cases of women who were forced to provide sex to soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army, with high-profile judges from the international community presiding.

The judges -- including Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, ex-president of the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal, and Carmen Maria Argibay, president of the International Association of Women Judges -- are to issue a ruling Tuesday.

Although the ruling will carry no legal authority, the tribunal is expected to clarify the criminal responsibility of the state and individuals, including the late Emperor Showa, for the women's sexual enslavement.

On Friday, chief prosecutors Patricia Viseur-Sellers, legal adviser for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and Ustinia Dolgopol, an Australian law professor, read out an indictment accusing Emperor Showa, Gen. Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister, and eight other commanders of the Imperial Japanese Army for pressing women into sexual slavery, rape and crimes against humanity.

The accused are all dead. Evidence was presented by a joint team of North and South Korean prosecutors regarding the systematic removal by force of women to provide sexual services.

A number of former comfort women from the Korean Peninsula also testified, describing their horrible experiences. A member of the Korean delegation said she was deceived by a Japanese police officer and was forced into sex service when she was 12. She showed a videotape of the scars she has all over her body that she claimed are the result of violence by soldiers.

'I will never forget the experience," she said. The survivors are from China, Taiwan, the Philippines, the Netherlands, the Korean peninsula, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The tribunal also aims to further a growing international trend to criminally punish wartime violence against women, according to Yayori Matsui, representative of Tokyo-based VAWW-Net Japan. It will consist of presentations from seven countries and one region, each including indictments by prosecutors, survivor testimony, examination of evidence, judges' questioning and experts' testimonies.

The event was organized by the International Committee, which is made of representatives of VAWW-Net Japan, the Korean Council for Women Drafted for Sexual Slavery by the Japanese Military, and the Asian Center for Women's Human Rights. It is also supported by the International Advisory Committee, an ad hoc group of legal experts from third-party nations. There will be a public hearing Monday on crimes against women in recent conflicts, including those in Algeria, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Kosovo and Indonesia. The hearing will be coordinated by New York-based Women's Caucus for Gender Justice.