A digital museum was recently launched on the Internet to document the activities of a disbanded semiofficial relief organization for former World War II sex slaves, who were euphemistically called 'comfort women.'</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='250' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='../images/photos2007/nn20070928f2a.jpg' WIDTH='250' HEIGHT='188'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>A virtual museum recently opened on the Internet that documents the activities of the Asian Women's Fund, a disbanded semiofficial organization that disbursed funds to former World War II sex slaves. </B>KYODO PHOTO</FONT></TD> </TR> <TABLE> </PHOTO> <PARAGRAPH>The virtual museum, called The Comfort Women Issue and the Asian Women's Fund, aims to keep a record 'of our awareness of the comfort women issue and of our atonement project so that people can learn a lesson from history' even after the organization's disbandment in March, former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, president of the Asian Women's Fund, says on the Web page.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The site at <A HREF='http://www.awf.or.jp' TARGET='_blank'>www.awf.or.jp</A> is in both Japanese and English.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The first section, titled 'Japanese Military and Comfort Women,' provides descriptions of how women were forced to provide sexual services to Japanese officers and soldiers during the war and how they have lived since then.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'Women at comfort stations were forced to render sexual services to many officers and men, their human dignity trampled upon,' the section says. The text is accompanied by numerous photographs, maps and illustrations.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Many comfort women chose not to return home after the war ended in 1945 'out of a feeling of shame and remained in a foreign land, staying there for the rest of their days,' it says.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Those who did go home 'suffered from physical disabilities and venereal disease . . . –

have lived for more than half a century after the war, suffering practically as much as they did during the several years they spent in military comfort stations," it says.

The museum also preserves the testimony of several former comfort women.

Born to a Korean father and a Japanese mother in Tokyo in 1921, Kimiko Kaneda went to Seoul for better employment and then moved to China, where she was forced to be a comfort woman.

According to her testimony, the desire to forget her pain drove her to opium, and she had to have a hysterectomy in her 20s because "as many as 20 men would come to my room from early morning."