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Factbook
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Factbook on Global Sexual
Exploitation
Korea
Trafficking
Korean women are trafficked to Hong Kong for prostitution. (CATW - Asia
Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)
Men prefer to buy the sexual services of young girls to
prevent a variety of diseases and AIDS transmission. Therefore, younger and younger
children are lured into the sex industry. Some are locked up and forced to engage in
prostitution. Crackdowns have resulted in 120 young people working for sex shops in Texas
Village, Seoul being sent home between October 1996 and October 1997. (Kim Song-ae, "
‘Texas Village’ may become residential area," Korean Herald, 27
October 1997)
Prostitution
Around the U.S. military bases, there are 18,000 registered and 9,000
unregistered prostitutes. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution
in the Asia Pacific)
Illegal brothels, with name such as "Miari Texas" and "Chonhodong
Texas," flourish in Seoul, South Korea. The use of the name Texas was influenced by
Western films such as the "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas". ("S.Korea
‘Texas’ Brothel Name Irks Pastor," Associated Press, 2 April 1998)
Policy and Law
Women suspected of prostitution can be confined in "rehabilitation centers"
without due process. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the
Asia Pacific)
Official
Response and Action
Korean police have been cracking down on
prostitution in Texas Village, Seoul. According to estimates by police, about 1,000 women
were engaged in prostitution in Texas Village, but the figure has been reduced to 200.
(Kim Song-ae, " ‘Texas Village’ may become residential area,"
Korean Herald, 27 October 1997)
Sixteen sex shop owners from the Texas Village red-light district
of Seoul were arrested and 78 others apprehended without physical detention. (Kim Song-ae,
" ‘Texas Village’ may become residential area," Korean Herald,
27 October 1997)
Organized and Institutionalized Sexual
Exploitation and Violence
"Comfort Women"
Historians estimate that the Japanese abducted as many as 200,000 Asian women, most of
them Koreans, and forced them into prostitution as "comfort women" for the
Japanese army in WWII. ("South Korean War Slave Activist Dies," Associated
Press, 16 December 1997)
The South Korean government ended its efforts to get compensation from the Japanese
government for the South Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during
World War II. The South Korean government will pay each of the 152 women used as comfort
women by the Japanese military during World War II US$22,700, US$4,700 of which is from
victim’s rights organizations. (Stephanie Strom, "Korea Won’t Seek Japanese
Reparations for WWIIs ‘Comfort Women’," New York Times, 22 April
1998)
The hundreds of thousands of Koreans forced into
prostitution or labor for the Japanese military deserve an apology from the Japanese. The
apology should come during President Kim Dae-jung’s visit to Japan in October 1998.
Japan has apologized several times, but many South Koreans feel the apologies have fallen
short of true remorse. ("S. Korean leader seeks Japan apology," Associated
Press Online, 16 September 1998)
Factbook Table of Contents
CATW
Homepage
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women
Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation
Donna M. Hughes, Laura Joy Sporcic, Nadine Z. Mendelsohn and Vanessa Chirgwin
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