Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has never used the word "apology" on the issue of the country's sexual enslavement of women during World War II and is unlikely to do so in a statement marking the 70th anniversary of the war's end, a Japanese activist said Thursday.

Mina Watanabe, secretary general of the Tokyo-based Women's Active Museum on War and Peace, made the remark during a presentation about how Japan has handled the sexual slavery issue at a seminar held at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

"He never pronounced the word apology on the issue of comfort women," she said, using the euphemistic term referring to victims of sexual slavery who were forced to work at front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during the war.

Comparing a statement Abe made about the issue with the one that was made by his predecessor, former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Watanabe pointed out that the word "apologies," which was in the predecessor's statement, was gone in Abe's statement.

Instead of using the word "apology," Abe only said in his statement that he was "deeply pained to think of the comfort women." The expression is not something the perpetrator nation should say, Watanabe said.

"This year is the 70 year anniversary of the end of war and Abe may make some statement and we can presume that something will be missing from his statement," Watanabe said, apparently meaning that no apology will be included in the statement.

Watanabe said Abe is "very consistent in denying the historical facts of the comfort women system."

"Just a month before he became prime minister for the second time, he endorsed a revisionist opinion ... saying comfort women were mere prostitutes," she said.

She said the Japanese government has taken out references to the comfort women issue from junior high school textbooks on grounds that junior high school students are too young to learn about the issue. Now, Japan is attempting to take it out from high school textbooks and is even trying to "censure" a U.S. textbook.

The activist was referring to Tokyo's demand made late last year that U.S. textbook publisher McGraw-Hill alter the description of the sexual slavery issue in one of its textbooks. The demand was denounced as apparent attempt to water down the atrocity.

Watanabe also criticized Abe for pledging at the U.N. General Assembly last year to help make the 21st century a world with no human rights violations against women and "pouring millions of money" for the cause while at the same time turning a blind eye to calls for reparations from sexual slavery victims.

"Even if the government of Japan did something good to support the survivors of sexual violence inflicted by other states ... It does not evade the responsibility of the state of Japan to the survivors of comfort women system," she said.

"If the government of Japan admits to the crime of its own military and meet its obligation under international law, to provide reparations to survivors, it would set a significant benchmark that states are held accountable for their crimes even after 70 years," she said.

Shu-hua Kang, executive director of the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation, also held a presentation about Taiwanese victims of the atrocity, and urged Japan to admit and formally apologize for the crime and provide compensation to victims.

"Sexual slavery, a form of wartime violence directed against women, is one of the worst human rights abuses of our day," she said. "For over 70 years, the Japanese government still denies any legal responsibility over the crime it committed against comfort women and refuses to compensate survivors directly."

Kang also urged Tokyo to reject any public statements distorting historical facts about comfort women and to "incorporate the history of comfort women into the national curriculum so that younger generations can understand such crimes should never happen again." (Yonhap)