Likewise, she added, recent experience has shown that it has not been easy to get justice for women -- such as those in the former Yugoslavia -- whose rights had been violated through rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution or pregnancy.

These explain why it is crucial that the negotiations here on an International Criminal Court (ICC) produce a tribunal that pushes forward -- and not backward -- the state of international law with regard to the use of "widespread and systematic" use sexual violence in conflict.

"We must ensure that the ICC's statute reflects the present state of international law," said Sajor, a Filipino who is executive director of the Asian Centre for Women.

"This means that the words rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, enforced pregnancy, mass rape and other forms of sexual violence be used and specifically listed as war crimes, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of the human rights of women," she pointed out.

Sajor recalled that the recent indictments of the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda did concern acts of violence against women. "But there were difficulties when the investigations and prosecutions first began...when the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was created women had to struggle to have the crime of rape listed in the statute and to have resources devoted to the investigation of that crime," she explained.

"This conference must ensure that the results of its deliberations will not be the cause of yet another setback for women victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity," Sajor said.

"The court must be fully accessible, through an independent prosecutor, to act on the complaints of women" and to "incorporate gender perspectives in all aspects of its jurisdiction, structure and operations," she added.

Sajor reminded delegates that there are currently wars and armed conflicts in more than 35 countries, where violence against women is being perpetrated.

"Unfortunately, the historical record in this area is not good," she said. For instance, she said, although extensive evidence of rapes and other forms of sexual violence was presented to the Tokyo Tribunal set up after World War II, the international community "developed collective amnesia" over the offenses carried out by the Japanese imperial army.

The Japanese military operated a network of sexual slavery involving hundreds of thousands of women in countries like the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan, which it had occupied more than a half a century ago.

Japanese leaders have expressed remorse for the wartime offenses, but Tokyo has ruled out any compensation saying war damages had been finished long ago. The women's continuing search for justice symbolises the collective memory loss over the comfort women's suffering.

The ICC cannot deal with retroactive crimes, but the comfort women issue may well underscore the kind of atrocities that should in the future be covered by a permanent tribunal.

Rape is also classified as a crime against humanity by the Nuremberg Charter and Berlin Protocol when committed in a "widespread and systematic manner".

But past failures to adequately address the impact of armed conflict on women was "deeply troubling", Sajoy said, and has undermined many women's faith in the ability of tribunals to achieve justice. Alison Dickens.