The Japanese government has ignored the United Nations' call for taking legal responsibility for South Korean and other Asian women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during World War Two.

At a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Japan's envoy also denied calls for compensation for the victims of the crime against humanity. He claimed Japan took all legal responsibility and settled the question of compensation with South Korea.

Earlier on Thursday, envoys from South and North Korea along with a civic group representing the victims of sexual slavery issued a joint call for apology, legal responsibility and compensation.

According to historians, hundreds of thousands of Asian women ... most of them Koreans ... were forcibly taken to Japan for sexual slavery during the second World War.