The Group of Seven advanced nations plan to commit to efforts to protect the rights of LGBT and other sexual minorities in a statement to be released following the summit in Japan starting next week, government sources said Friday.

The move comes as the Japanese government faces increasing pressure to become more supportive of the country's LGBT community and address their discrimination concerns, with the Asian country lagging behind other G-7 members on the issue.

The G-7, which groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, plus the European Union, is considering what to include in the statement regarding gender equality issues, building on a G-7 communique issued in the wake of an annual summit in Germany last year, according to the sources.

In last year's communique, the G-7 affirmed their commitment to "ensuring that everyone -- independent of their gender identity or expression or sexual orientation -- has the same opportunities and is protected against discrimination and violence."

The Japanese government's stance toward sexual minorities has come under fresh scrutiny after a close aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters in February that he would "not want to live next door" to an LGBT couple and that he does "not even want to look at" LGBT people. The aide was swiftly sacked.

The envisioned statement prepared for the three-day summit in Hiroshima, western Japan, through May 21 is intended to help Japan highlight that it is moving in lockstep with other G-7 peers to improve the human rights situation and to quell criticism from the United States and European nations that want the Asian country to do more.

Japan remains the only country in the G-7 that does not legally recognize same-sex marriage or civil unions. Many members of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which is headed by Kishida, have opposed the concept, while cherishing traditional family values such as the role of women in giving birth and raising children.

Apparently to showcase progress on the issue ahead of the Hiroshima summit, the LDP is moving ahead to submit a bill to promote the understanding of the LGBT community.

In the upcoming summit, the G-7 leaders are expected to emphasize the importance of their leadership role in working toward protecting sexual minorities and affirm their alignment in dealing with discrimination, the sources said.

At a foreign ministerial meeting held in April, the G-7 members reaffirmed their "continued global leadership on gender equality and the promotion and protection of the rights of women and girls in all their diversity," as well as LGBT persons.