IT WAS mentioned only in passing amid the extensive reporting of the conflict in Georgia: rape had, apparently, once again been used as a weapon of war. This is not surprising.

Rape has been used as a weapon of war for thousands of years. It is still used this way, despite the fact that it has been declared a war crime and a crime against humanity by the United Nations. Thousands of women were raped during the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s; thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, were raped in the civil war in the Congo; and thousands have been raped in Darfur in the decades-long campaign of genocide by the Sudanese Government and their Janjaweed militia.

Rape as a weapon of war has been extensively employed by soldiers across vastly different cultures. The consequences for the women subjected to this form of violence are lifelong: in many instances, they are cast out - or subjected to further violence - by their families and their communities.

The consequences of war crimes and crimes against humanity are felt for generations. That's one reason why there should be no statute of limitations on the prosecution of alleged war criminals.

Such prosecutions are as much about a recognition of what was done as they are about delivering justice. The Hungarian Government's request for the extradition from Australia of 86-year-old Charles Zentai, who is accused of having beaten to death 18-year-old Paul Balazs in Budapest on November 8, 1944, is not about prosecuting an old man for a murder he is alleged to have committed 64 years ago.

The murder of Paul Balazs, killed because he was caught not wearing the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear across occupied Europe, was part of the annihilation of millions of Jews during World War II. While a Perth magistrate ruled last week that Zentai's extradition should go ahead, it will ultimately be up to the Rudd Government to decide whether Zentai is sent to Budapest to stand trial.

There is another issue involving war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during World War II that the Rudd Government will be confronted with in the coming weeks. During the war, the Japanese military, with the approval of the government in Tokyo, set up hundreds of "comfort stations" in the countries they conquered and occupied. These brothels were used by Japanese soldiers, some of them high ranking officers. The "comfort women", thousands of them, were mostly teenagers, forcibly removed from their families and transported to the so-called comfort stations across Asia where they were held for months and in some cases, years.

Until the early '90s, the survivors of the Japanese military brothels were so consumed with shame and pain that they were silent about what they had been through. In the early '90s, a small group of comfort women, encouraged by activists in Korea and other Asian countries, came forward to tell their stories and demand that the Japanese Government recognise what happened to them and offer them an official apology.

I encountered them first in Washington in early 2007, when some of these women testified before a congressional committee that was looking at drafting a congressional resolution demanding that the Japanese Government recognise the crimes that had been committed against the comfort women. That day of testimony by these elderly women in a packed hearing room was the most emotionally charged day of hearings I witnessed during my time in Washington. In the end, despite intense pressure from the Japanese embassy, Congress passed the resolution with overwhelming support from both Republicans and Democrats.

Similar resolutions have been passed by the Canadian Parliament, by the Netherlands and the EU. Despite this, the Japanese Government has not only refused an apology, but has continued to argue that the brothels were not officially sanctioned and what's more, many of the comfort women had volunteered for sexual enslavement.

The obscenity of this denial, the pain and suffering it has caused the surviving women is unimaginable. You can glimpse it on their faces and hear echoes of it in their voices when you listen to the testimony. A small group of them are travelling around Australia now to talk about their experiences at public meetings and to help drum up support for a federal parliamentary resolution along the lines of the one passed by the US Congress.

A petition demanding a parliamentary resolution will be presented to the Prime Minister in the next couple of weeks. No doubt the Japanese embassy in Canberra will pressure the Rudd Government not to support any such resolution. These efforts must fail. There are fewer and fewer surviving comfort women and clearly, the Japanese Government believes it has time on its side. This issue is about both the past and the future. Rape has always been a weapon of war. It still is. It always will be unless governments - and the people they govern - admit their past culpability.

The Rudd Government should, without delay, introduce a resolution demanding such an admission - as well as an official apology to the comfort women - from the Japanese Government. Before it really is too late.

theage.com.au