Yonhap reports that a US Congressional Research Service report on human trafficking has sparked controversy by labeling Korea a major destination for sex tourism.
This, despite “objective records” showing that since the Special Law on Prostitution went into effect in 2004, the red-light districts have closed down, organized tourism for foreign tourists has been “virtually eradicated,” and even private prostitution has been greatly reduced.
Stop laughing, damn it.
Anyway, some are now calling on the government to get actively involved in providing accurate information about the country, if for no other reason than to boost the national image.
The CRS report, released on Jan 10, named Korea along with the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong to a list of Asian countries that are major destinations for organized sex tourism.
By naming Indonesia and Taiwan as secondary destinations, the report even had the audacity to suggest prostitution in Korea was worse than in, well, Indonesia and Taiwan.
This came after a June 2007 report by the US State Department slamming Korea for having a serious human trafficking problem, despite also naming Korea to a list of nations complying with standards to eradicate human trafficking.
An official at the Korean Embassy in Washington said they’re doing all they can to provide accurate information to US officials, scholars and experts, but “there are times when the realities of Korea are not accurately reflected.” He added that steps would be taken after they figured out what happened.
In the interest of doing my part to convey accurate information about Korea, let me say for the record that organized sex tourism for foreign tourists — while it probably still exists — is nowhere like it used to be (or so I’ve heard) during the heyday of gisaeng tourism. It’s definitely nowhere near the likes of Thailand. As for Korea’s attempts to eradicate domestic prostitution, well, that’s a different story…
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“WonderVANK powers, activate!”
I’m guessing them saliva-dripping netizens will have a field day with this.
The actual report is here, if anyone wants to read it:
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts.....080110.pdf
It’d be blowing this report out of proportion to make a big deal of it. Anyhow, SK is ranked as a tier 1 country (among those doing the most to stem trafficking) rather than tier 3 (the worst countries) like they were back in 2000. That’s something, at least.
if the shoe fits …
I wonder if this US Congressional Research Service report on human trafficking reports on the human-trafficking situation in the US? And if so, what “tier” it is on? With any particular attention paid to the Wash-DC brothels favored by Congressmen…?
No non-Japanese foreigner in their right mind would ever consider Korea a sex tourism destination because the industry here simply doesn’t cater to the barbarians. Plus it’s just too damn expensive. However, per capita, there are more sex industry workers in Korea than Thailand or the Philippines. In those countries, the sex industry is generally isolated to certain districts in certain cities. In Korea, there are room salons, anmas, barber shops, and other outlets on nearly every street in every city/town. Not to mention the glass house districts, dabangs and call girls available everywhere. I believe I even read on this fine blog not too long ago that approximately 25% of all Korean women between 20 and 30 years old were somehow employed in the sex industry.
I’m not knocking Korea at all. In fact, I consider Korea much more enlightened on the matter than say…. Prudish America. I’m just pointing out a logical reason as to why Korea might be perceived as a sex tourist country. Personally, instead of fighting the report to “save their image”, I wish Korea would do as Germany did during the 2006 World Cup and tell the US to mind their own f*cking business.
Plus the US has the annoying recent habit of equating prostitution with human trafficking. The two are separate issues. While it could be argued that the glass house districts are a form of debtors prison in Korea, nearly all workers in the Korean sex industry are there by their own choice. The reasons for this choice (limited employment and career opportunities for women, materialistic tendencies, etc) is a subject for another thread.
Finally, Korea is recognized as a “hub” of some sort!
A couple of months back, there was a comedy show on KBS and the comedian mentioned that a US Government report has designated S. Korea as a “sex capital” or something of that sort.
The guy then said “How dare they!” and he went on to say that the U.S. was a “no.1 in illegal drugs”, “no.1 in violence”, etc.
Yup, some Koreans obviously aren’t too happy with Korea being internationally associated with the sex trade. Especially if it comes from the U.S.
Min, would you mind telling us what that show was? I want to check it out myself to see what the show is about since because I have some suspicion that you may take things out of context and turn them into another series of personal anicdotes designed to get approval from this crowd.
#8,
…#1 in comedy.
I only skimmed, but it didn’t seem to touch a whole lot on the domestic situation, which isn’t surprising really, the purpose of the report being to highlight abuses happening in other countries so that sanctions may be imposed upon the worst of them (of course, the pres. typically waives the sanctions for Tier 3 countries like Saudi Arabia.)
It’s a report on trafficking rather than prostitution (as tightly-linked as they can be in many places), so dunno that brothers in the DC area would really hurt the US ranking (if it were ranked). After all, the Netherlands is ranked up in the first tier… So yeah, as long as the people aren’t being trafficked (or the country’s government is doing enough to combat the trafficking), I don’t think it figures into picture that much.
“I’m not knocking Korea at all. In fact, I consider Korea much more enlightened on the matter than say….Prudish America. I’m just pointing out a logical reason as to why Korea might be perceived as a sex tourist country. Personally, instead of fighting the report to “save their image”, I wish Korea would do as Germany did during the 2006 World Cup and tell the US to mind their own f*cking business.”
Maekchu, I couldn’t agree with you more. Also, thanks for the in-depth knowledge of Asian whoring.
Korea has a first-rate whoring culture that any guy in the world with more than 80 dollars in his pocket would love to be a member. I mean, there is such a selection of whores…high school girls, college girls, married women, ajumas, etc. Why shun this in the face of puritanical Americans when it should be embraced. Let’s be honest with ourselves: What John would really want to mess around with some toothless, overweight American meth-head…WHEN…he can give his 21-year-old neighbor’s daughter some pocket money and have a good time with her while she’s in the prime of her youth? It’s her decision. Furthermore, because there’s no violence in Korea, it’s safe. And what’s with all this condom crap you hear back home? Do you chew gum with the wrapper on the stick?
Which brings me to a bone I have to pick with all these prudish foreigners in Korea always asking me,”Are you married?”, “Why aren’t you married?”, or “Do you have sex with many Korean girls?” My favorite is “Do your parents complain that you’re not married?” It really gets annoying. Take your Fox News Channel and go home.
ZZOOzzoo…Korea: The hub of the rub and tug.
By the way, kids…the Korean underworld can be as cruel and heartless as any hellhole back home. When I first came to Korea, the Army guys used to tell me that country girls would get kidnapped, systematically raped and “broken in” in certain parts of northern Seoul. I would assume that would be Miari or the other establishments…some train and subway station. Of course, that’s pretty much gone these days. However, the involuntary servitude to pay off debts that are compounded daily? Give me a break! Don’t justify evil because the migooknom is complaining. Yes, the ones who do it on their own…sure, let them do their thing. But the Kwangju-Jinju- Seoul triangle thing is not right. Neither is the Korean-Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Filipino trafficking thing going on at a noraebang in your neighborhood.
Wow. Bravo, Colonel.
#9.
cm, now what’s so “crowd pleasing” about telling people that some Koreans are not too crazy about the US designating Korea as a “sex tourism destination” or something in that order and using a comedy show as an example?
As for the comedy show, it’s called 폭소클럽2 and that particular episode was broadcast on KBS 1(it has since been moved to KBS 2) sometime in the first half of 2007. I believe it was April or May. If you want to go to the KBS site and look through the episodes, be my guest.
“What John would really want to mess around with some toothless, overweight American meth-head…WHEN…he can give his 21-year-old neighbor’s daughter some pocket money and have a good time with her while she’s in the prime of her youth?”
Twenty-one year-old neighbor’s……..daughter???? So, she would be about 2 or 3? That’s sick.
“cm, now what’s so “crowd pleasing” about telling people that some Koreans are not too crazy about the US designating Korea as a “sex tourism destination” or something in that order and using a comedy show as an example?”
And this was revealed in a comedy show? OK, I’ll go look up that show and watch it to find out what they were talking about. Thanks.
I support making sex tourism a core industry Korea. Prostitution remains one of the most thriving sectors of the Korean economy. As China continues to supplant Korea as an exporter of consumer goods, a better developed sex tourism industry would fill an important niche in bringing in hard currencies.
Mizar5> But China would also be giving Korea a run for its money in developing a sex tourism industry. Throw a stone in China, and within that radius, you’ll find something.
I think China will win this race. My colleagues (old job, new job, young colleagues, old colleagues, all male) have consistently talked China up as THE place to go for the dubious “golfing trip” with their buddies. “Pretty girls at only a fraction of the price!”
The Philippines is spoken of pretty highly too, but apparently the filipinas’ skin has some strange smell that they can’t wash off? And some of the guys seem, at least as an afterthought, somewhat turned off by this “smell.” Maybe the filipinas need to go to the 짐찔방, since that, as I’ve been told by many Koreans, is the only way to completely clean one’s skin.
If I could read Japanese it would sure help me to navigate the menu offerings at the dozen or so colosseum-sized 안마 near my office in 광진구.
cmm, that’s one crude fuckin’ post, man.
All was meant sarcastically. Sorry, my sarcasm doesn’t come across as sarcasm as obviously in blog format I guess.
NONE of those viewpoints are mine, but rather things that I’ve been told with high level of seriousness by colleagues or other local friends. I am entertained by such perceptions (smelly foreigners, the local’s unique way to be cleaner than others, etc.) when I hear them here, and I’m sure others here have heard some of the same things, so was just trying to pass on the entertainment.
So, please don’t misunderstand 19. I don’t think filipinas smell, hence the use of quotes around “smell” above. And, I don’t think going to the 짐찔방 and grating your skin with that abrasive rag is going to make one smell much better.
Hmmm. I’d love to know how accurate the source of that news is. As far as I know women from our country wash themselves like there’s no forever. Maybe it was something he ate before he did his thing? We’ll probably never know.
littlebrown, some of my colleagues had reached that consensus after a “golf trip” weekend trip. Maybe the girls there don’t have as much garlic in their diet, and what the guys all thought they smelled was actually a lack of what they smell when they indulge in their regular homegrown gochujang-fed 창녀.
I’ve been told that we haystacks smell like milk. I don’t even drink milk. Could it be that kimchi and curdled bean curd do something to the nostrils?
cmm,
LOL, we love garlic! Almost every dish we have involves the thing one way or the other. I’m thinking, maybe it’s because we’re not fond of the red chili stuff found on kimchi and other local dishes here. Dunno how much that can affect one’s smell.
” I think China will win this race. My colleagues (old job, new job, young colleagues, old colleagues, all male) have consistently talked China up as THE place to go for the dubious “golfing trip” with their buddies. “Pretty girls at only a fraction of the price!” ”
Of course China will win the race, being generally less xenophobic than Koreans. And there is also much less racial discrimination.
You wanna go?
http://profile.myspace.com/ind.....=111283113
Mizar, isn’t Mizar the name of the star in the Big Dipper on the handle that is closest to the dipper part? The fifth star if naming them from the tip of the dipper? Maybe I just deciphered your handle.
China now has a growing problem with AIDS and other STD. If I were a condom manufacturer, I would go to China.
Finally! Corea now has a #1 international ranking in something of merit. I expect front page headlines of this throughout the next 5 days on the Chosun Ibo.
Finally I can speak…
I wouldn’t put Korea on the same list as Thailand, but then again I’m not a sex tourist. I have lived in Asia and traveled a bit. I remember seeing a news story where Vancouver is a sex tourism destination… so any place can be, certainly Las Vegas is.
I was in Phnom Phen or however you spell it, staying in a ’sports bar’ that a Norwegian girl had recommended to me. It was called the Walkabout. Needless to say I got sick, Phnom Phen is the biggest hole I’ve ever visited, it is most definitely not the Prague of South East Asia as some article recently tried to portray it.
Anyway I’m totally ill, by myself and I’m sitting at the bar, drinking gingerale listening to the other punters moan the decline of the sex tourism industry just about everywhere. One guy lamented the decline of sex tourism industry, each touting a different locale: the Phillipeans, another some country in Africa. They didn’t seem to be too happy being in Cambodia with a girl on each arm drinking 50 cent beer.
I guess the life used to be more glamourous.
Right now some Vancouverite is in jail in SE Asia as the Germans reversed the filter he used to scramble his face in pictures posted on the internet.
This just in, if you travel to a foreign country specifically to have sex with underage people, don’t post pictures of it on the internet…
I have read how the Japanese are going to China for ‘business trips’ and I kinda know where the red light district was in Beijing, but it was really just a bar district, there were restaurants and real sports bars and places with live music. But there were also touters in the streets offering to take you to “lady bar” or maybe that is just the Thai term.
Anyway I think Thailand is still in the lead thought parts of East Europe also remain popular. Korea is a lot more classy and high tech, certainly not like Phnom Phen, you couldn’t ride a moto there without being offered the big three:
Ganja, Bang Bang, and Boom Boom
The first one should be pretty obvious, bang bang refers to the ability to go outside the city limits and blow shit up with an AK-47 or a grenade. Boom boom apparently is what you ask for in the streets to find a lady or a boy.
Or you could just ask the bartender and punters, heck they came knocking on my room door at the Walkabout…
Man was I ill for a couple days there.
“Mizar, isn’t Mizar the name of the star in the Big Dipper on the handle that is closest to the dipper part? The fifth star if naming them from the tip of the dipper? Maybe I just deciphered your handle.”
Very good, cmm, you have nearly deciphered it. But for more specific results, google the entire phrase Mizar 5 and see what it yields.
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