Korean Prostitution in US on the Rise, Visa Waiver at Risk?

The September issue of “Queen,” the Seoul Sinmun’s women’s magazine, reports that the image of Korean-American society in the United States is taking a hit because of an increase in the number of Korean prostitutes — entering the United States sans visa thanks to the visa waiver program — setting up shop in Migukland.

According to the story, businesses in the Korean communities of LA, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Edmond (?) and New Haven were busted by police for prostitution in July and August. In LA in early August, several score of Korean prostitutes using an Oriental medicine clinic, chiropractor, spa and specially renovated apartment were busted in police raids.

For example, one 37-year-old working girl at a spa in Edmond (?) was busted after she offered an undercover cop oral sex or vaginal sex as she massaged him. Oh, and she wasn’t wearing underwear.

In San Francisco in mid-July, about 10 Korean women were busted during a raid; most were young women in their late 20s who came to the United States without visas to engage in the, ahem, water trade.

Oh, and now there’s something called a “date line,” in which Johns call up the establishment owner to talk with registered girls in order to arrange meetings at hotels and apartments.

Particularly shocking — shocking, I tell you! — to Korean-American society was the discovery in May of a prostitution website based in LA’s Koreatown that had something like 7,000 members. The website not only had a section in which members could swap tales, but also had prostitute profiles, nude photos and even phone numbers.

(Note: the original magazine piece also notes that the website included male prostitutes, too, frequented by housewives and female professional types, for example, when their kids were at school)

According to the story, website members regularly met at a hotel to hold parties with invited working girls, with associated establishments providing girls with experience working in high-end room salons in Korea.

With the state of prostitution in the Korean-American community getting ugly stares from Americans, it’s having an effect on Korea, too. US immigration authorities have reportedly strengthened immigration screenings on Koreans (who don’t need visas to get into the United States), reentry screenings for ethnic Koreans have grown stricter, and officials have gotten more anal about visa documents.

With an estimated 60,000 Koreans illegally residing in Korea after entering the United States without a visa and overstaying, Korea’s continued participation in the visa waiver program has been put in jeopardy, too. Or so the magazine said.

Marmot’s Note: This is probably an English teacher-style hackjob on the US Korean community. But at least it’s an entertaining hackjob — English teacher pieces could probably do with less mention of drugs and more references to oral sex.