South Korean civic groups staged a series of rallies Monday, denouncing the government for holding a summit with Japan without a formal apology for its colonial past.
  

Some 70 civic groups held a joint press conference in central Seoul, criticizing that the summit took place when Japan did not make an apology for its wartime misdeeds, including the sexual enslavement by Japan's troops of Korean women during World War II.
  

Japan has so far refused to accept Seoul's demand that it formally apologize to and compensate victims of its wartime sexual slavery, insisting that the women were recruited by civilian profiteers and its wartime military-led government was not directly involved.
  

The issue has gained urgency in recent years as the victims are dying off. In 2007, more than 120 South Korean victims were alive, but the number has since dropped to 47, with their average age standing at nearly 90.
  

Historians estimate that more than 200,000 women, mostly Koreans, were sexually enslaved by Japanese troops during the war. Korea was a colony of Japan from 1910 to 1945.     
  

In the current situation, the summit dealing with the potential entry of Japanese self-defense forces into the Koreas is inappropriate, the groups said.
  

Associations of bereaved families from the colonial victims also held a press conference in front of the former Japanese Embassy building in central Seoul, demanding Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe apologize to and compensate the forced Korean laborers during the period.
  

Many Koreans were conscripted into the Japanese military or drafted to work in the military industrial sector, being deployed to Japan and other countries against their will.
  

Many of them returned home after the Korean liberation, following Japan's defeat in the war, but others remained abroad. Many are believed to have died during the war.
  

It is unclear how many people were mobilized for forced labor and died. Some civic groups claim the number of conscripts goes up into the millions.
  

"In the summit, sex slaves are rising as key issues but soldiers, workers and repatriation of their corps are left out," they said.
  

Other liberal civic groups took part by picketing in front of the Westin Chosun Hotel in central Seoul where Abe has been staying.
  

President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed during the first summit between their countries in more than three years on Monday to speed up negotiations to quickly resolve the issue of former sex slaves, Cheong Wa Dae said. (Yonhap)