Since three Korean women came out in 1991 and demanded government compensation for being forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers, many former "comfort women" have died in despair, receiving no compensation, never seeing their rapists brought to justice and having suffered the further humiliation of being branded liars by so-called intellectuals.

In 1993, the government admitted the Imperial army "coerced" the women into sexual servitude and offered an apology to them in a remark by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono.

The government and the nation's courts, however, have dismissed compensation claims on grounds that international treaties do not allow individuals to demand redress from the state.

While seeking a way to respond to their cries as a woman in the offender country, Yayori Matsui learned of a citizens' war crimes tribunal in the 1960s.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell, with help from Jean-Paul Sartre and some Japanese figures, organized a citizens' trial amid the Vietnam War that ruled in 1967 that the United States was guilty of genocide in Vietnam. Russell's ruling, even with no legal binding, gave tremendous momentum to the global antiwar movement, Matsui said.

Inspired by Russel's stand, she organized the Women's International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery, which kicked off Friday in Tokyo.

The citizens' tribunal will attempt to bring some token justice to what was virtually ignored by the Allied Powers in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East held more than half a century ago, organizers say.

By making clear the responsibility of offenders of past crimes, the tribunal may serve to help heal some of the trauma the victims have long suffered over their horrible experiences.

Yun Chung Ok, a representative of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, said at a press conference earlier this week that "through obtaining court judgment in the tribunal, we want to restore the victims' honor and dignity as well as social justice."

Indai Sajor, a representative of the International Advisory Committee, an ad hoc group of legal experts from developing nations, came to the briefing immediately after learning that the Tokyo High Court had rejected an appeal filed by 46 Filipino former sex slaves.

Sajor quoted one of the plaintiffs as saying: "Maybe we will have better luck at the other court. I think I am going to die next year. I want to get over this.

"(In that sense,) this is not a mock trial."

The tribunal is expected to add momentum to a growing international trend to make wartime violence against women subject to criminal trials, the organizers said.

While rapes and other forms of violence against women during times of military conflict have tended to be branded as inevitable, United Nations tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda accused individuals of violent acts committed against women during war.

The expected establishment of the International Criminal Court, which was decided by the U.N. in 1998, also demonstrates a growing awareness in the international community that people who commit crimes against humanity or sexual violence during armed conflicts should be brought to justice.

Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, former president of the Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal who will serve as the judge in the trial, said her experience in the Yugoslavia tribunal convinced her that "international humanitarian law must be enforced if there is to be an end to the culture of impunity which we have seen in the 20th century, and it looks like things are the same in the 21st century.

"We feel we have stepped into the void that was created by the (postwar) Tokyo Tribunal because of its unconscionable failure to consider the issue of comfort women."

The women's tribunal appears to have attracted great media attention from overseas, including the countries of the former sex slaves and the West.

According to the organizer, reporters from nearly 60 foreign media organizations, including 15 with no reporter presence in Japan, have registered to cover the tribunal, along with about 30 Japanese news organizations.