UN envoy's remark angers Japanese govt

The Japanese government is demanding that a UN envoy must retract remarks that 13 percent of schoolgirls in Japan are involved in forms of paid dating that can involve sex.

The Foreign Ministry said it had recently informed the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that the comment, made in Tokyo last month, was "inappropriate and extremely regrettable".

It is "unacceptable" that the envoy cited "unreliable information" without a source, the ministry said in a statement on Monday.