Near the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, yesterday, 2,800 prostitutes and brothel owners demanded an end to the government’s anti-prostitution campaign. [YONHAP] (via Joongang Ilbo)
After watching countless demonstrations by leftist and rightist nutjobs, it’s nice to finally see a protest over an issue worth protesting about. From the Korea Herald:
More than 2,500 sex workers from across the country rallied in front of the National Assembly yesterday, protesting new antiprostitution laws as a threat to their livelihoods.
The women accused the government of destroying their jobs by scaring away customers.
“Guarantee our livelihoods. Recognize our role as workers,” they shouted in unison.
Talking with a reporter, a sex worker from Busan in her twenties said, “A lot of these women including myself have families that depend on the money we take home. What is going to happen to our families?”
She added, “What are we supposed to do? This is a life and death situation for us. We have no other way to go.”
The protesters sat in rows, wearing modest clothes and covering their faces behind sunglasses and flu masks. Many wore baseball caps to further conceal their identity.
But it’s not just the girls and pimps having a tough time since the Great Prostitution Crackdown of Sept. 27 began. Certain sectors of the tourist sector and export businesses were being hard hit as well as the number of Japanese tourists and potential buyers dropped off. It would seem that many of the small and medium-sized hotels in Seoul as well as small and medium-sized travel agencies had relied heavily on Japanese tour groups who counted on tours of Seoul’s major red-light districts (Japanese sex tourism? Tell me it ain’t so!); since the crackdown, some of these places have been experiencing 20 percent drops in customers and occupancy. Ditto goes for Seoul’s duty-free shops, who are mysteriously seeing fewer Japanese customers. Also heavily dependent on the Japanese tourist trade were “entertainment” establishments in Gangwon Province and Jeju Island, which were booming before the crackdown owing to the popularity in Japan of Korean dramas set in those locales. BTW, it apparently wasn’t just male tourists involved, either — one travel agency official on Jeju Island said there used to be “host bars” catering to Japanese women apparently looking to satisfy their Bae Yong-jun fantasies, but since the crackdown, they’ve closed down, and Japanese tour groups were no longer inquiring with his company, despite October being a popular tourist month.
It gets better. Exporters in the Dongdaemun and Namdaemun markets were also fretting as it was common practice to take potential Japanese buyers to the red light districts of Mia-ri and Cheongnyang-ni to get them laid before cementing a deal. At W60,000 a pop, this wasn’t so bad, but with the crackdown in place, one exporter was complaining that he would have to use high-end karaoke clubs to entertain potential Japanese buyers, which could place a financial strain on his business. Merchants in the Dongdaemun Market also predict that since they figure about 80 to 90 percent of Japanese buyers visited the red light districts when they visited Korea, imports of yen might also take a considerable hit.
Employees doing business with Japanese buyers at large and medium sized firms were also troubled by the crackdown. Said one employee of a digital equipment importer, “Because we import electronic goods from Japan and sell them in Korea, we have to entertain people from the corporate headquarters in Japan once or twice a month, but now that Mia-ri and Cheongnyang-ni are shut down, I don’t know what to do.”
Life truly is a bitch.
But fear not, unemployed hos and pimps — while the sex trade may be suffering in Korea, the Korean sex trade seems to be flourishing in — that’s right — Canada! To be fair to our neighbors in the Great White North, it’s also flourishing in the United States (also mentioned in the piece), but the article I spotted deals primarily with the trade in Canada, and the city of Vancouver in particular. Apparently, police in that city have recently been busy busting Korean brothels one after the other. In August, police were tipped off that a particular house in the upscale West Vancouver district (1492 W 53 St.) was getting an awful lot of visitors every night. When they raided the place, they found seven young Korean women gainfully employed at the residence as massage girls. An investigation turned up that the girls — all in their 20s — had come to Canada on tourist visas after working as prostitutes in Korea. Interestingly enough, they were able to find their current place of employment through advertisements in Korean-language newspapers in Canada looking for masseuses. One of the girls was also a housewife who had brought her family with her from Korea. Anyway, Canada’s IRB has apparently ordered all of them deported.
The massage parlor in question — the “Seoul” — specialized in “perverted sex,” a police investigation of its clients revealed. It had apparently moved around a bit for years before finally coming to grief at the strong arm of Canadian law enforcement. The problem, however, is that the Vancouver constabulary believe there are about 200 such establishments set up all over the greater Vancouver area, and the number has been rising drastically as of recently. Canadian police believe 600 adult women enter the country to engage in the sex trade every year, after which they are sold like chattel from city to city. Police are also concerned about the drug and organized crime activity associated with the establishments, along with some of the side businesses these brothels engage in (like arranging “swapping”). Vancouver police were amazed by the boldness of the “Seoul,” however — the place had gone so far as to run Internet advertisements comparing the ages of the women who worked there.
UPDATE: It’s a couple of days old, but just in case you didn’t read it, GI Korea discusses ways to clean up the “ville” culture outside U.S. bases in Korea.
UPDATE 2: A 35-year-old American English teacher was fired from his job at a a university in Daejeon for calling a “massage girl” to his room in the on-campus foreign professors apartment. The teacher employed the services of of the massage girl (or girls) three times — on Sept. 14, 18, and 22 — and paid for said services with his credit card. This was were the problem came in, because Daejeon police found his name on the massage company’s books after the Great Crackdown began. The teacher, who was fired from his job on Oct. 5, said he felt lonely living alone and apologized to the school.
Three times in nine days — on campus — and you pay with your credit card. Gluttonous AND stupid is no way to go through life. That being said, at least he wasn’t banging his students, which anyone who has been in that profession knows happens often enough with both Korean and foreign staff.
16 Comments
Less Japanese tourists?
The Marmot is all over the recent prostitution crackdown and some of the results thereof, plus more. According to Marmot’s post, even the number of Japanese toursits have declined since the crackdown. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
I don’t see what the big deal is. This all ends on 22 October. They should be happy it’s not a permanent crackdown. Yes, the laws have changed, but the police will stop arresting folks on the 22nd.
The smart girls hopped a flight to Saipan or Guam for a month, made a little extra cash and got some sun.
If were up to me I’d throw them all into bootcamp.
hmm. what you have to do get business going with a neighbor with economic clout.
She added, ?橫What are we supposed to do? This is a life and death situation for us. We have no other way to go.??
Yes, what are they supposed to do? Get one of the many jobs in factories that need people so bad they bring in foreigners? Gulp…work? Produce real value for the Korean economy while keeping your pride and dignity?
Recently I went to Ansan to get a feel for the battle area there during the Sino-Japanese War 1894/1895 and was forced to use one of the public bathrooms there. While sitting (yes, believe it or not, there was a western-style toilet in the stall) I had the opportunity to be educated by the writing on the wall (graffiti [sp?] = public announcement done cheaply) that there were more than 300 “Choson” women with AIDS serving the city area. I am not sure where all these “Choson” women came from - perhaps they are part of the large Chinese group that works in the area, but it is good to know that there is always someone ready to step in for the regular Korean prostitute that is forced to get a job in a factory as Zdunk suggested. It is amazing what you learn while doing the “paper work.”
By the way - did anyone notice the ad in the Korea Times (please read the Korea Times) that a woman will come to your house and give you a massage for a mere 900,000 ???……. I noticed (not that I was looking) that the other women (I assume they are/were women) were offering their services for a mere 100,000 ??? an hour. Of course I remember going to the “Steam and Cream” on base (Camp Coiner) and the special messageeeee was only 7 dollars - inflation.
ZDunk, “Produce real value for the Korean economy while keeping your pride and dignity?”
Who are you to define “pride and dignity” for someone else? And prostitution is beneficial for the Korean economy, because huge sums of money change hands in this industry. It is capitalism in its purest form. Prostitution IS the oldest profession in the world for a reason - there is always supply and demand.
Since prostitution is never going away, it would be best for the Korean government (and other governments) to legalize and regulate it. All prostitues would be licensed and checked periodically. There could also be a “Hooker Bill of Rights” and they could be allowed to unionize, like in Europe. Pimps without licensed prostitutes would go to jail.
This program would have several benefits:
- There would be less sex crimes.
- Reduce the spread of STDs.
- Prevent sex slavery of foreign workers.
- Prostitution areas would be zoned.
- The government could raise revenues by taxing it.
To paraphrase George Carlin: selling is legal, sex is legal, so why is selling sex illegal?
My intention was to point out that alternatives to their jobs exist, contrary to what they say. “Forced to work in factories”, well, only in the same sense I am forced to work at my company, or any of you are ‘forced’ to work at yours. Namely, in this world we have to work to eat, sleep in a house, and generally survive.
I really have to disagree Mr. Webb that pride and dignity are possible as a prostitute. Graphically, drunken strangers ejaculating into you is categorically degrading, and if you think it isn’t then I just wonder what the weather is like on your planet.
These women do have employment options. They choose the degrading quick bucks over honest work, because some people make weak-willed or foolish decisions like this sometime.
As for legalization, sure. I just wanted to point out that they have options they decline to take.
The world is an imperfect place, always has been, always will be. The only way to stamp out institutional prostitution is to do as communists do and I doubt many people would go that far. Moralizing about the vices of prostitution does nothing but blow more hot air. The only two options about it are to actively engage in anti-prostitution measures or to co-opt it. Frankly co-opting prostituion seems to be the more effective long term solution. Besides, prostitution isn’t neccessarily a social evil. It may not be highly regarded in a socially conservative Korea or by Christians, but the prostitute has her place in society and sometimes as history has shown, it was a public one.
jtb, “Prostitution is wrong”
Is it? I don’t see the point in legislating against behavior that men and women are genetically programed to do. I think that most men understand that it is very difficult to obtain free sex. Women expect something in return before sex, whether it’s cold cash or a burger at McDonald’s. Prostitution isn’t much different than “dating.”
jtb, “encourages other crimes”
Keeping prostitution illegal contributes to crime because many criminals view prostitutes and their customers as attractive targets for robbery, fraud, rape, or other criminal acts. The criminals realize that such people are unlikely to report the crimes to police, because the victims would have to admit they were involved in the illegal activity of prostitution when the attacks took place.
jtb, “wrecks families”
Prostitution is mostly a symptom of marital problems, not a cause of it.
jtb, “spreads STDs”
No, no, no. Making prostitution illegal increases the spread of STDs, because the activity would go underground and girls would not get checked.
If you legalized prostitution Korea all of those gilrs will be out of work. They’re too ugly to compete with the ass that would star working if you made it legit.
Someone mentioned the massage advert in the times. The 900,000W is just a typo that they never fix.
A lot of the ads say “housecall” service, but when you ask them to come to your house they say they only go to hotels. WTF?
Asia by Blog
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Of course these women have other employment options. Of course having drunk strangers ejaculate inside you is degrading. But then again so are all kinds of other jobs.
The problem I see with legalizing prostitution is the attitudes towards the presence of prostitutes. Look at what’s cited here and in Marmot’s other article: the “professional” needs of companies entertaining Japanese businessmen is big one.
All men have the same basic drive for sex, sex, sex. All men even, I would argue, have an instinctual interest in varied sex with varied women. But not all men act upon it, and not all men pay for it. In fact, most men don’t.
When they do, it’s because either they’re willing to do it despite social strictures against it, or because they’ve found a group (population?) of women who don’t mind it, or because, well, the society tactily accepts it.
I don’t think a crackdown will solve anything. I don’t think legalizing the profession will help the women who are doing it, or women in general.
A campaign to shame men who sleep with hookers, and to punish businesses that use their services, would be the most powerful thing, I think. Imagine investigative reports? Headlines about “Modern Comfort Women Sold to Japanese Businessmen by _______” (fill in the company name).
The same kind of callous attitude that allowed brothers, cousins, uncles, and even husbands to sell their female relatives into slavery as comfort women is the attitude that regards these women as cheap entertainment. And if you ask me, I don’t care how long that attitude has been around, it needs to be changed.
And yes, I’m a big hairy white westerner saying that. It’s not as if there’s nothing in my own culture I think needs changing; and it’s not as if Korean culture has never changed. It’s also not as if something having been some way for a long time means it is impossible to change, or ought not to be changed.
Will it be easy? No. And it won’t change because some western complains that it should. It’ll take a major change in consciousness, especially (and first) among women, before any of that can happen. But of course it *can* happen.
One thing that will need to happen along with that is a change in thinking. Right now most Koreans I’ve talked to about it (not many) seem quite happy to believe something as naive as this: that most prostitutes here service foreigner men, that foreigner men are “sex maniacs”. Of course, not only is it totally impossible for the foreigners in the country to support a sex trade that big, but it’s also absolutely laughable to think that, with a sex trade that big, Korean men aren’t using the “services”. (It’d be laughable to think no foreign men are, but it’s more laughable to me to think that foreigners alone support the whole sex trade.) That kind of nationalistic naivete needs to be seriously addressed, so women understand that, yes, it is primarily Korean men who are seeing hookers here, and who will need their attitudes changed too. Perhaps they will teach their sons differently than their husbands were taught.
In the meantime, aside from what I think should happen, what I think *will* happen is an inglorious conclusion to this crackdown and things returning to “normal”. The status quo was just too easy to keep going, I doubt it’ll change significantly in the near future.
Marmot’s Sex Trade Articles
Over at Marmot’s Hole is a semi-recent series of posts about the sex trade, to one of which Prostitutes need to eat, too! And where have all the Japanese gone? Canada? I have posted a lengthy comment on…
I agree with everything that Gord Sellers has to say on the subject.
Eyes on Korea: 2004-10-26
Eberstadt’s article; China plans annexation?; NK defectors making “big push”; Chinese humanitarianism; Reactions to the NK Human Rights Act; The information war; NK prison camps; Various diplomatic military strategies; ROK in Iraq; Anti-Americanis…