Targeting social media users, Amnesty International has launched a new initiative aimed at extracting an apology from the Japanese Government on behalf of WWII’s ‘comfort women’.

Amnesty International claims that during WWII the Japanese military forced women into internment camps to serve as sexual slaves for Japanese armed forces. It is believed as many as 200,000 women were put into slavery as a result.

The ‘Comfort Women’ initiative allows users to create a butterfly, pick its shape and colour (and then rotate the resultant Rorschach-style colour disc). Following this, respondents are asked to provide their name, email and mobile number to ‘sign’ a pre-generated petition.

Supporters are asked to download their butterfly, set it as their picture on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter and then change their status to reflect their action and link people to the initiative.

Amnesty International’s initiative aims to urge the Australian Government to pass a motion asking the Japanese Government to apologise, as well as compensate these women. The organisation also requests users donate toward skywriting a butterfly above parliament house to emphasise the point.