However you feel about the legality of prostitution, this is just plain sick.
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Sick
This entry was written by Andy Jackson, posted on June 6, 2007 at 10:31 am, filed under Asides. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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41 Comments
Yeah so - how many of the 800 clients where USFK personnel?
I am just curious cause I keep being told that Human Trafficing / Prostitution is all USFKs fault.
A curse on all these disgusting unqualified foreign English teachers! What animals! Is there no low these white men will shrink from debauching pure Korean women? I hope a national newspaper runs a headline warning Korean women from these dogs forthwith! They’re even blonde! Blonde! And with blue eyes! The brazenness to possess these! Anyone with blonde hair and blue eyes must be a casanova-like sex fiend here to prey on the tragic misconceptions of naive young Korean women etc etc…
Oh wait. It seems the men involved aren’t white English teachers. H. Kim, will you please edumacate me on how this could be?
Nothing to see here. Move along, move along folks…
They obviously learned this type of behavior from watching American T.V., no true Korean would do a thing such as this. Perhaps someone mistranslated, or, perhaps, they didn’t realize that these culprits are not true Koreans but American-born Koreans…..any way you look at it - America is to blame
I hope the 3 pimps get sent away for a long time.
One thing that really bothers me about this is that 14 is probably ‘Korean age’, which means that the girl could have been as young as 12. I hope they arrest every single one of the customers for raping a minor.
What is the relation of the “legality of prostitution” to what happened in the link?
Sorry, I am stupid!
If this article misleads anyone into believing this girl was a prostitute it is a shame. She was a prisoner who was prostituted by her captors. As a prisoner, I am sure she begged each of the 800 Korean “men” who raped her to help her. Obviously, none of them did.
What is even more disturbing is the fact that it appears Koreans are not viewing this for what it is…rape. According to the article, “Police will request arrest warrants for 10 customers who knew Jeon had been detained and assaulted.” I know little of Korean law but I would hope even in this backwards country that when a middle school girl is forced to have sex with an adult that it is treated as rape. All 800 of these freaks need to be arrested.
a-letheia,
There have been many debates (including at this blog) about legalizing prostitution between consenting adults. This is something that both sides of that debate would find abhorrent.
I still don’t see your point. What do debates about prostitution have to do with this story?
Wow. I’d really like to get newcomer French Quarter’s take on this, considering what he wrote about South Koreans, Korean Americans and ‘whites’.
French Quarter, based on your observations and conversations with detectives and police officers, does this mean that we should expect a higher or lower incidence of this form of outrageous abuse from Korean Americans?
You know the nice thing about Koreans? Whenever a foreigner gives them something to get their collective “panties” in a bundle over…Koreans come right back with something ten times as horrific to top it. Sheer genious!!!
#8
It doesn’t. This is a kidnapping and rape case. That is my point.
If you look at the Chosun’s Korean language article there’s more information (and a pretty disturbing photo of her cigarette-burned hands. She was kidnapped November 20 and escaped May 22 (in other words she was held for 6 months - something the English language article omitted for some reason). She is indeed 14 in western age - the article describes her as a middle school grade 2 dropout, and having been kidnapped last year, would make her 16 in Korean age now. Her kidnappers were a 20 year old woman and her 24 year-old boyfriend, with 3 other people involved.
That any of her customers could see her hands and just ignore that is pretty disturbing.
One unintended (although not unpredictable) effect of the Special Act on Prostitution and the parallel US Forces Korea harangue on “prostitutionandhumantrafficking” is that they take away chances to help women in the position of this girl. Anyone noticing her plight whilst humping away who might think to go to authorities also has to plan for the criminal charges that would be laid against him, as an admitted patron of the sex business. And he’s an easier target — not being “protected” by gangsters.
Separating the matter of prostitution from the matter of kidnapping, rape and slavery allows for a choice to be made about which is a more compelling problem for the state to address. Conflating them just pushes the hard target into the background.
#11
Yes, clear to most of us, but your original line doesn’t come across that way. I guess you’re speaking to the article and not this audience.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRA.....cd.02.html
I think perverts and sickos are prevalent world wide, and the evil man who desires to violate the young women is prevalent world wide as well.
This must be a typo from cnn. They must mean Atlantis.
That must be it.
Wake the hell up.
This is not a Korea thing.
But, it’s a horrible thing, and all who get caught should be punished severely. Severely.
not sure if this is referring to the same cnn tv segment I saw 1 or 2 years ago, but it was concerning an Atlanta ring of pimps taking advantage of
runaway white suburban school girls.
The customers?
White middle aged rich men.
Who wanted girls. Girls who wouldn’t give them std’s.
I hope they all get caught and locked.
how far would these sick men go?
Take a flight from New York to Atlanta, so they can prey on girls under 18, who were locked in shady motels, far away from home.
Who said this is a Korean thing?
very roughly,
read over 2,3,6,10 in this thread and draw on from your own college educated and in some cases advanced degreed intuitions.
wjk, in case such was not clear in my post above, I don’t think it’s a Korean thing at all. In fact, I was taking French Quarter to task for what he had stated in the other thread.
Like you, I think that this kind of problem extends to all areas of the globe, and like you, I think it is reprehensible. I also hope that you, like I, find it reprehensible of French Quarter to affirm a racial motivation to what the Chosun reported.
The cops didn’t assault her too!? An improvement I guess.
(Sorry, too lazy to hunt down a similar post here a few months ago.)
I erased my other long post in an effort not to arrouse further hostilities. Obviously I do not think it is merely a Korean problem either, and I apologize for making the earlier comment. However, having spent a great deal of time here, I wonder if the Koreans realize that it is a global problem including Korea….and not something that we foreigners have introduced into this pristine society?
Sick things happening all around the world.Who knows what goes on in areas that get no coverage?The ‘cure’ should be administered with extreme prejudice on a case by case basis.
BTW, are there bonus points for the most posts per minute?
wjk, the point the commenters were trying to make was not that child prostitution is exclusively Korean — it’s that the Korean media habitually blames foreigners (primarily military personnel and English teachers) for all sorts of alleged sexual impropriety in Korea, while the truth is that the most egregious sex crimes are those committed and perpetuated by Koreans.
Now, if the Atlantans you referred to were blaming Koreans, then you would have made a valid analogy. However, they’re not, so you have missed the point — again.
Well it didn’t take long for a Korean to come up with the usual “but look at America” argument. Yeh…so what? Terrible, sick things happen in America every day! We all know that and I have yet to meet an American that denies it.
The point isn’t that these things are Korean problems. The point is that those of us in the foreign community are sick of hypocritical Koreans who love to condemn every white person they can find whenever some jackass white person does something stupid in Korea. When Koreans (800 in this case) do something stupid you all walk around going “la, la.. la, la, la, la..la, la, la, la laaaa” with your heads in your chamber pots. Is it that difficult to figure out what the problem is?
Here is how the article may have read if ONE foreigner had been found to have been involved.
Helpless Korean Child Violently Raped and Ravaged by WHITE FOREIGNER.
Police have gleefully arrested one WHTE FOREIGNER on charges of imprisoning a helpless, young Korean middle school child and violently forcing her to engage in lewd and immoral sexual acts with a WHTE FOREIGNER.
According to police, THE WHTE FOREIGNER imprisoned Jeon, a 14-year-old sweet and innocent Korean child against her will in motels in Gwangju, South Jeolla province and forced her to engage in lewd and immoral sexual acts with a WHTE FOREIGNER.
The WHTE FOREIGNER is charged with viciously beating Jeon and burning her hands with cigarettes though she pleaded with The WHTE FOREIGNER to let her go continuously.
Chonbuk Provincial Police Agency said Jeon was violently forced to engage in lewd and immoral sexual acts as many as 800 times possibly with The WHTE FOREIGNER who is believed to be either an ILL TRAINED ENGLISH TEACHER (formerly employed by McDonalds) or an AMERICAN MILITARY SOLDIER currently oppressing the rights of all Koreans.
The WHTE FOREIGNER allegedly posted articles that hinted at prostitution on the Internet, an evil known to have been brought to Korea by WHITE FOREIGNERS.
Jeon managed to run away to an uncle’s home in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province on May 22, taking advantage of The WHTE FOREIGNER’S inattention and lack of a POST GRADUATE DEGREE. Police arrested The WHTE FOREIGNER when The WHTE FOREIGNER went to Jeonju to recapture the fourteen year-old sweet and innocent Korean child.
Police said they believed NO KOREANS could possibly be involved because KOREANS are too morally superior to ILL TRAINED ENGLISH TEACHERs (formerly employed by McDonalds) and AMERICAN MILITARY SOLDIERS currently oppressing the rights of all Koreans.
The Korean motel operators were cleared of suspicion due to their stupidity.
Creo, you forgot something.
The article would have opened with some sweeping statements explicitly impugning an entire group for the actions of the one person.
Something like “Allegations of abduction and sexual abuse against expatriate English teachers in Korea refuse to go away.”
They might follow it with a helpful statistic to illustrate the “trend,” something like “KFTRA estimates that ten percent of the 20 to 30 thousand foreign English teachers are fired after raping underage students or refusing to teach classes.”
Brendon:
But doesn’t prosecutorial discretion come into play? Back in the States, I’d think prosecutors would cut the john a deal, if not immunize him completely in exchange for his testimony. Wouldn’t Korean prosecutors do something similar?
I’m very confused… where in the article do they talk about how the foreign expats are to blame for this?
I’m very confused… where in the article do they talk about how the foreign expats are to blame for this?
Another good point from Mr. Bum. Like a broken record around here these days.
This so-called “Korean moral superiority” is a quite recent phenomenon. Especially after the extremely lucky 4th place during the 2002 WC Soccer and the aftermath with Roh being chosen, this Korean-nationalism (which is some sort of backward nationalism: not being proud of your country, but blaming other countries and nationalities for all of your problems) occured.
But this case is so horrifying that even the most nationalistic, left-wing radical Korean would not blame it on foreigners.
If anyone actually cares about the topic of the post, there’s a video here where, inexplicably, the victim joins an mbc news crew and returns to one of the motels she was held in, displaying her wounds and showing some of the chatting sites where her captors found customers.
#29:
The article doesn’t mention white expats. You see Koreans are morally superior to all foreigners and a Korean would never do anything like what the article mentioned. However, occassionally a Korean does veer off the path of moral superiority and this is really because of the immoral influence foreigners (white people)have on Korean society.
#33:
Hmm… is that 1) Overall sentiments of the South Korean people (and if so, how would I find out if it is true?) 2) the attitude of the South Korean media (which I agree can be unreliable and obnoxious at times) or 3) sentiments of the Korean bloggers and netizens?
It does seem that, at least on the Korean version of the article, the general sentiments of the comments left by the readers were that the kidnappers as well as the 800 clients were despicable men and deserved the harshest punishment possible.
No, it ain’t. That card has been played for a very long while.
bumfromkorea, yes it’s an act well worth all condemnation, and understandably, readers of the Korean-language articles have posted about how abhorant they think it is.
Yet why is it that, when one man alledgedly sends an email to an ex-girlfriend, the Koran-language media labels it ‘White English Teacher Threatens Korean Woman with AIDS’? In other words, following the logic of the Chosun Ilbo with respect to allegations and the racial makeup of those involved, should not the headline of this latest article read something like ‘Middle School Girl Brutalised by Korean Yellow Peril’?
I don’t think so. But by the same token, nor do I think that an entire racial group, or even an entire profession, should be held to account for the alledged actions of one person. For that alone, the Chosun Ilbo is a race-baiting rag.
French Quarter,
What, no response? By your logic, we’ve got a ’string’ of criminality here with this rape-abduction case, and your input would be appreciated.
But do those readers associate the crimes with the “Koreanness” of their perpetrators? No.
Why is it so hard for you to see the hypocrisy?
Things like this make me sick of humanity–bring on the asteroid. All these people are shits.
#36
I suppose there are couple of things I can say about the article.
1. Though no doubt that the article was not friendly to the “white” population residing in South Korea, I also doubt that the article nor the title had the same level of hostility and racial hatred as “Middle School Girl Brutalised by Korean Yellow Peril”.
2. Considering the short length of the article, little to no duplication in other news source, lack of netizen activity, and so on, the article seems to have made little to no societal impact, so Choson’s “racial baiting” didn’t quite work anyway.
3. There’s no doubt that South Korean media lacks a certain quality of integrity, but a lot of comments here seems to equate Choson-Ilbo to Koreans in general. Wouldn’t this be a false logic?
4. Supposing that somehow Choson-Ilbo reflects the Korean sentiments in general (and ignoring the fallibility of assuming there’s only one sentiment among a population), isn’t it possible that, having only recently opened up to non-natives and had very little time to adjust to the change (even counting the minuscule non-native population in 1950~1990 it is a mere fraction compared to other liberal modern countries), articles such as “White English Teacher Threatens Korean Woman with AIDS” does not strike South Koreans as racist? (As in, South Koreans does not recognize the article as racist?)
5. Even among South Koreans, Choson Ilbo is considered a questionable source of news with credibility among public similar to Fox News Channel in United States - that is, though there are people who follow it religiously, many also believe it to be a useless rag of a newspaper.
#37
I’d rather prefer looking closer into the claims made by others before making any decisions. If I accept what others write on face, wouldn’t that be horrendously irresponsible of me?
Also, it would be very strange for a group of people to observe a crime and comment “this happened because we are inherently flawed”. Aside from one distasteful comments left on the article, there’s no implication in the article that the alleged perpetrator being “white” led to the crime.
bumfromkorea,
I’ll take your points in turn:
1) Yes, no doubt it was more inflamatory. Then again, considering the 800-fold increase in the number of people involved, the greater magnitude of the assailants and the pain they caused ought to be expressed. Perhaps someone else could write a more apt title - one which would necessarily include ‘Yellow’, of course, in order to provide fair comparison with the other title.
2) I never claimed that the Chosun were successful in its efforts, only that they had made them. I do not criticise the paper because I believe that they are successful, I criticise them because I believe they are wrong.
3) I have not criticised Koreans in general regarding this, nor have I criticised Koreans as holding the same views as does that paper. I agree with you that to do so would be wrong. However, I haven’t, so there’s not much to say.
4) Again, I haven’t made that connection. Since you would like to entertain this idea, perhaps you can tell us if any culpability exists in what the paper wrote. I would add, however, that simply because people do not recognize something as racist does not mean that it is not, in fact, racist. It only means that they have not recognised it as such.
5) Yes, I agree that it is a rag.
1) Conceded. No doubt that the article is deemed racist, but perhaps this is mitigated by my fourth point.
2) You’re right; no matter how successful they were with this article, the existence of the article itself would be a problem. (on that account, we both agree, as we have in 5 ^^)
3) I didn’t intend to say that you held the belief (apologies if there was a confusion), but rather that previous comments have been blurring the line between the two.
4) I personally believe that a newspaper cannot redeem or condemn an entire population (as you believe). And yes, racism exists no matter the cognition by the population, but I was merely suggesting that for Koreans, it is not a matter of character flaw (or inherent flaw, as some have suggested in the past in this blog) but a matter of inexperience.
5) Definitely :-).