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  • 23/05/2013
EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3

Masayoshi Matsumoto joined the Japanese army in 1943 and went to China as a medical orderly.

One of his tasks was to examine Korean women brought in to work in a military brothel.

(SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) 91-YEAR-OLD JAPANESE VETERAN MASAYOSHI MATSUMOTO, SAYING:

"The comfort women had to go for sexual health checks, you could say it was their job to do it -- just as it was my job to check them. There was no choice in the matter. To refuse would have been a death sentence."

Historians estimate that as many as 200,000 so-called comfort women were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War Two.

Matsumoto who is 91 and a Christian pastor says it is now his mission to speak out about the injustices suffered by Asian women.

(SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) 91-YEAR-OLD JAPANESE VETERAN MASAYOSHI MATSUMOTO, SAYING:

"The Prime Minister should apologise fully

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