A South Korean professor has set out to help Chinese victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery in a bid to ease the suffering that so many of his compatriots also went through.

Yang Pil-seung, honorary head of a research institute on Chinese businesses at Seoul's Konkuk University, recently launched a charity fund in China with the aim of supporting the few surviving victims of the Japanese military's sexual enslavement during World War II.

In a phone interview with Yonhap News Agency, Wednesday, the 59-year-old scholar said he was prompted by the Korean film "Spirits' Homecoming," which depicts the lives of Korean women who were forced into the same fate.

"Chinese comfort women lead miserable lives to the extent that they can't sustain a basic livelihood," Yang said, using the euphemistic term for the former sex slaves. "They returned home after surviving all sorts of hardships and their communities rejected not only them but also their children."

He named the fund "Friend of 22" because there were 22 registered victims in China at the time he conceived the idea in May. In the two months since, two of them have died.

"I jumped in thinking that I have to help them before it's too late," Yang said. "China's younger generations aren't aware of the seriousness of the comfort women issue. It's rewarding to see young people showing a response, thanks to the media's attention to the work I'm doing as a South Korean."

A well-known Chinese cosmetics blogger has offered to donate a large sum of money to the fund, while news about the organization has often appeared on local sites, he said.

The professor stressed that the issue of the comfort women should be approached from the perspective of human rights and welfare, transcending politics and national borders.

Once he establishes the necessary foundation to help the Chinese victims, Yang said he plans to assist trilateral research among South Korea, China and Japan and film a documentary on the comfort women issue.

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese troops during the war. Korea was under Japanese colonial rule from 1910-45, while China also suffered from Japan's aggressions in the early part of the 20th century.

South Korea and Japan reached a landmark deal in December to settle the dispute over the comfort women through an apology from the Japanese government and Tokyo's payment of 1 billion yen ($9.58 million) into a Seoul-based foundation for the Korean victims. (Yonhap)