The Shanghai government has decided to temporarily suspend a plan to demolish a site used by the Japanese military for sexual slavery during World War II, according to Chinese state media reports on Wednesday.

The site in the Hongkou district of Shanghai was a residence of a Chinese owner of a cotton mill, but was occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1939.

In 1940, about 40 women, including 10 Korean and 20 Chinese, were coerced to serve Japanese soldiers at the location, the reports said.

The Hongkou district had planned to demolish the site under a redevelopment project from Jan. 22, but recently decided to suspend the plan as public calls to retain the site were growing.

According to historians, more than 200,000 women, mostly from Korea but also China and other parts of Asia, were coerced into sexual servitude at front-line Japanese brothels during the war.

Those victims were euphemistically called "comfort women" by the Japanese military.

Su Zhiliang, director of the China Research Center of Comfort Women, told the Chinese state media that about four-fifth of 166 sites in Shanghai that were used by the Japanese army as military brothels were demolished.

Su urged the Shanghai government to retain the site because it serves important evidence of the Japanese military's forced mobilization of women as wartime sex slaves. (Yonhap)