More than 5,000 people have given their signatures of support for California's new school curriculum guidelines calling for teaching students about Japan's wartime sexual slavery, campaign activists said Tuesday.

A coalition of Korean-American organizations in Los Angeles, which has organized the signature collection campaign, said that 5,088 people have signed up at the online petition website at www.comfortwomenpetition.org. 

Religious organizations and other Korean-American groups have also been collecting signatures in support of California's 2014-2016 Draft History-Social Science Framework that includes the "comfort women" issue in the world history curriculum for grade 10.

The Californian Department of Education has been collecting comments from the public on the new curriculum guidelines, and plans to finalize the framework in May.

"'Comfort Women,' a euphemism for sexual slaves, were taken by the Japanese Army in occupied territories before and during the war. 'Comfort Women' can be taught as an example of institutionalized sexual slavery, and one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the twentieth century," the draft framework said.

On the other hand, an online petition has also been under way to oppose the new curriculum guidelines. 

Right-wing Japanese nationalists are suspected of involvement in the petition under way at the change.org online petition site to demand California's Department of Education write "comfort women were well paid prostitutes, sold their service to U.S. Army as well."

About 5,400 people have signed the petition.

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 water down the atrocity.

The sexual slavery issue has long been the biggest thorn in relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

But the two countries announced a landmark agreement in late December that centers on Japan's admission of responsibility for the wartime crime and plans to pay reparations to the victims.

South Korea promised to end the dispute once and for all if Japan fulfills its responsibilities. (Yonhap)