Guo Xicui (in wheelchair), 79, leaves the Tokyo high court March 18, 2005 after the court rejected her claims for compensation. She and many other Chinese women were forced to be sex slaves for the invading Japanese troops during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45). (Photo: Xinhua)

A Tokyo court yesterday rejected appeals by two Chinese women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japan's army during World War II, when both were teenagers.
The two women - Guo Xicui and Hou Qiaolian from China's Shanxi Province - filed the original suit in 1996, seeking 20 million yen (US$190,000) in compensation for their suffering, saying they were repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers who invaded China during the war.
Guo was 15 years old at the time, and Hou was 13.
Hou died four years ago, and a relative has taken over her legal action.
The Tokyo High Court upheld an earlier district court ruling rejecting their demands, said court spokesman Koji Suwabe. He refused to give further details.
High court Judge Hiromu Emi supported the 2002 district court ruling that the Japanese government does not have to pay the women damages because China "had waived a right to seek compensation from Japan" under a 1952 peace treaty, Kyodo news agency reported.
A 20-year statute of limitations on such cases has also expired, Kyodo said.
The case could still be appealed in Japan's Supreme Court, the country's highest, but it was not clear yesterday whether the plaintiffs planned to do so.
In 2002, the Tokyo District Court ruled that Japan's current government is not responsible for what wartime rulers did under the prewar constitution.
The two women claim the Japanese army abducted them in 1942 during Japan's occupation of China and other parts of Asia, confined and raped them every day for about a month.
The district court judge acknowledged that the brutality has left the women with post-traumatic stress disorder, Kyodo reported.
But yesterday, the high court judge said that the sexual assault against them was not "systematically conducted or authorized by the Japanese government."
Japan has acknowledged that its wartime army set up brothels and forced thousands of Asian women to work in them, but it has refused to pay compensation to individuals, saying all compensation issues have been "resolved" between governments under postwar peace treaties.
Historians say the Japanese forced up to 200,000 women, mostly Koreans but also Filipinos, Chinese and Dutch, into sexual slavery during World War II.
Dozens of court cases seeking compensation from Asia's World War II-era sex slaves and forced laborers are still pending in Japan.