A group of scholars in the United States plan to hold a panel discussion this week about Japan's sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women for its troops during World War II, organizers said Monday.
  

The discussion, set for Wednesday at Central Washington University in the U.S. state of Washington, was organized in response to the planned screening at the same university of a film made by a right-wing Japanese resident to discredit sexual slavery victims.
  

Attending the discussion will be seven scholars from CWU and other universities, including CWU political science professor Yoon Bang-soon; CWU history professor Ahn Chong-eun; and CWU anthropology professor Mark Auslander. College of Arts and Humanities Dean Stacey Robertson will serve as a moderator, organizers said.
  

The screening of the film "Scottsboro Girls," set for Wednesday and Thursday, was apparently timed to coincide with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to the United States. How Abe will address historical issues is a focus of attention during his trip.
  

A Japanese language instructor at the university, Mariko Okada-Collins, invited a right-wing Japanese man, Yujiro Taniyama, to screen the film, which depicts sexual slavery victims as prostitutes voluntarily following Japanese troops for money.
  

Opponents of the screening said it is believed to be the first time that a U.S. college or university has allowed itself to play host to what they call the "Japanese equivalent of neo-Nazis on its campus."
  

Historians estimate that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea, which was a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945, were forced to work in front-line brothels for Japanese soldiers during World War II.
  

But Japan has long attempted to whitewash the atrocity while refusing to formally acknowledge its responsibility and apologize. (Yonhap)