It was sponsored by the "Kansai Network for Solving the Issue of Comfort Women for the Imperial Japanese Army," the Japanese civic organization.

Present at the rally were members of the Council for the Solution of the Issue of the Volunteers Corps in south Korea, victims of the sexual slavery, Koreans in Japan, Japanese figures and U.S. religionists.

A statement was read out at the rally.

The statement charged that during the Second World War Japan took lots of women to the battle fields for aggression, deprived them of their freedom and inflicted unimaginable pains on them.

Even though 21 years have passed since the first Wednesday rally, Japan still refuses to make an apology and reparation for them, persistently denying its crimes, it held.

On the contrary, the Japanese ruling forces are revealing the ambition to revive militarism, distorting the history and vociferating about the revision of the pacifist Constitution, it noted.

The statement urged the Japanese government to admit its past crimes and make an apology and reparation for them.