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Prostitution in South Korea

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Prostitution in South Korea is a big industry in the country. The Korean Institute of Criminology estimated that it comprises 4.1% of South Korea's GDP, just behind Agriculture, at 4.4% of GDP. The sex industry accounts for $20 billion a year, in revenue.[1] According to surveys by civic organizations, it is estimated that there are over 300,000 establishments in the sex industry, ranging in various forms, such as massage parlors, red light districts, karaoke rooms, tea houses, and others. Over 1.2 million women are believed to be working in the trade. [2]. The government stopped keeping official figures in 2004. A significant number of women from Russia, Uzbekistan and Southeast Asia (particularly the Philippines) are brought to the country to work as prostitutes or "juicy girls".[2] An increasing number of women are being taken to the United States, Canada, and Australia to work as prostitutes, and a number of them claim to have been tricked or forced.[citation needed][original research?]

In 2004, the government passed the Act on the Prevention of the Sex Trade and Protection of its Victims, a sweeping new law criminalizing human trafficking and stiffening penalties for brothel owners, establishing a number of shelters for victims and ending their automatic deportation. Some Korean sex workers, however, protested what they saw as a threat to their livelihoods. The law's passage was followed by a crackdown which reports indicate was unsuccessful at making prostitution less lucrative or popular.[citation needed]

The United States Department of State gives South Korea high marks for its efforts to combat human trafficking[3]. With 37,000 U.S. soldiers stationed in Korea, there are several red light districts near the bases and many Korean civic organizations campaign against military prostitution.[citation needed] Though United States Forces Korea cooperates with Korean authorities, many accuse of it failing to do enough or even of shirking its duty.[4]

In December 2006, The Ministry for Gender Equality, in an attempt to address the issue of demand for prostitutes among, offered cash to companies whose male employees pledged not to pay for sex after office parties. The people responsible for this policy claimed that they want to put an end to a culture in which men get drunk at parties and go on to buy sex.[5]

Historical context

With the end of the Japanese occupation in 1945, prostitution was made illegal by the governing United States authority, and the law was re-confirmed by the new South Korean parliament in 1948. Nevertheless, prostitution flourished in the next decades as the law was not treated seriously; it continued in much the same basic forms as it had before, though with US soldiers replacing Japanese as the foreign military customers.[citation needed] The Korean War saw the rise of prostitution centers in the Jongno-3-ga area, Mia-ri, and Cheongnyangni 588, which was the last stop for many Korean soldiers before the front lines.[citation needed]

The 1960s saw the effective institution of "camp towns" around the US bases, where brothels were allowed to operate unfettered[6]. Though prostitution continued to be technically illegal, it was in fact tolerated at all levels by authorities.

Modern Prostitution

Today, while a number of prostitutes do work in brothels that do little to conceal their activity, most are believed to work in much more sophisticated settings, where sex might take place only at the discretion of the woman herself. A "room salon" or a "hostess bar" is a venue where groups of businessmen, usually using the company credit card, can drink with young hostesses. No sex takes place on the premises but men sometimes negotiate a tryst elsewhere.[citation needed]

Barber's pole's are often used as an indicator that a building contains a brothel or a massage parlor which offers sexual services. Other means of advertising are more explicit, including cards and flyers distributed haphazardly on city sidewalks or placed on the windowshields of parked cars, with pictures of scantily clad women accompanied by directions, telephone numbers, and sometimes maps and accepted credit cards.[citation needed]

Massage parlors offering sexual services sometimes distinguish themselves from legitimate parlors by advertising with the word "anma" (안마), sometimes quite openly with large neon signs. Following the enactment of the Special Law in 2004, there was a crackdown on red-light districts; while many of the brothels in those areas were forced to close, the crackdown came as quickly as it went, with the result that prostitution was driven more underground but also became a more competitive business with lower prices and more services[7]. Well-known redlight districts full of "glass houses", where girls wait for customers in small rooms with curtains, still exist in Busan and Suwon.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ "Changing attitude toward sex threatens South Korea"
  2. ^ "SEX WORK IN SOUTH KOREA", Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Accessed on February 10, 2006
  3. ^ "South Korea Improves Human Trafficking Record", The Chosun Ilbo, June 15, 2004. Accessed on February 10, 2006
  4. ^ *Moon, Katharine H.S., "Sex Among Allies:Military Prostitution in U.S./Korea Relations" Columbia Press, 1997. Accessed on October 27, 2006 (PDF link)
  5. ^ S Koreans offered cash for no sex, BBC News [1].
  6. ^ "Ladies of the 1950s Nights", Andrei Lankov, The Korea Times, January 2, 2006. Accessed May 9, 2006.
  7. ^ *"From mobile sex to group sex, Korean sex industry thrives despite—or because of—Special Law", The Marmot's Hole blog. Accessed on April 27, 2006.

News reports

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