Aging and frail-looking, a group of South Korean women, along with a large number of supporters, held their weekly Wednesday gathering in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul, South Korea. It was the 1000th such rally held since 1992 in protest of the Japanese government’s maltreatment of them during World War II. The embassy keeps its blinds shut during the protests and does not comment.

The women, along with those from other southeast Asian countries were abducted or duped into serving in Comfort Stations for the Japanese military men. Many were beaten and repeatedly violated every day for years. Many died, most were left infertile from venereal disease, but all suffered unconscionable horrors from their captivity.

Ahn Seon-mi, leader of the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, told CNN in an e-mail Tuesday that the group seeks several things from Japan.

“No. 1 is acknowledge the war crime. Reveal the truth in its entirety about the crimes of military sexual slavery,” she said.

Seon feels restitution should include rewriting the history books to accurately reflect what happened. The group also wants reparations, a memorial for the victims, and punishment for those responsible, she said.

At the latest gathering the women, called ‘halmeoni’ or ‘grandmother’ in Korean, marked the milestone with a provocative statue, a bronze ‘peace monument’ more than a meter tall, depicting a girl standing by a bench. The artwork portrays the child petitioning for peace between Korea and Japan, according to Asia One News.

“The Japanese government should realize how much South Korean people want an official apology by seeing the peace monument. As a country with war crimes, Japan must apologize to victim countries immediately,” 19-year-old Kim Bit-na said, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Kim Hak Soon was the first of the former comfort women to speak out in the early part of the 1990’s. At the age of 67, her testimony inspired other women to do the same. Within one year more than 200 other Korean women who had been enslaved as comfort women came forward. They have joined together, supported each other and shared their experience. And they want some form of justice from the Japanese government.

A memorial monument was erected in 2010 in Palisades Park, New Jersey in the midst of a mostly Korean population. It is the only memorial to these women standing in the U.S. There have been repeated attempts by Japanese officials to have the memorial removed. The memorial’s continued presence seems to be escalating tensions between the two nations. The Japanese have offered to plant some cherry trees in the park and donate books to the library if the memorial will be removed. Officials in the New Jersey Korean community continue to refuse to remove it.

The official Japanese position is that the issue is “legally resolved,” Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on the eve of a trip to Seoul in October, according to news reports at the time. A 1965 bilateral treaty between Japan and South Korea officially rendered the issue dead, he told reporters.

There are only 63 of the original group of women left. Originally estimates held their numbers at anywhere from 20,000 to as many as 410,000. The oldest of them died in December 2011 at age 97. The senior member is 93 now, Seon said. Time for an apology is running out.

Sources: UPI, CNN, New York Times