Japan promised land for S. Korean prostitutes

The Internet advertisement guaranteed financial rewards almost unimaginable in the prevailing economic gloom: "Why not go to Japan, where you can earn 20 million won (about 1.55 million yen) a month with ease!"

If there was something risky about the opportunity, it didn't deter more than 80 women across South Korea from sending off applications for the job, convinced that here were riches too great to pass up in tough times.

The 47-year-old South Korean man who posted the ad replied by e-mail. He wanted to see their photographs. He called his favorites to quiz them about their details: Age, height, clothing size and more.

Fifty-seven women satisfied the conditions for the job: They were between 23 and 33 years old, 160 to 165 centimeters tall, with clothing sizes between 44 and 55.

On May 18, the Gyeonggi Police Agency near Seoul arrested the man on suspicion of sending the women to work at 14 sex businesses in Kawasaki.

An official at the agency said the tale had become a familiar one for the recent era of financial hardship, which has driven hundreds of desperate South Korean women into the Japanese sex industry in search of lucrative rewards.

"Women who've lost jobs in the recession or in the ongoing police raids on the sex industry have been attracted by the appreciation of the yen, so they're going to Japan in search of work," the official said.

South Korean police have been cracking down on illegal sex services since summer last year, apparently as part of a public relations campaign to win approval from a critical public.

Between May and summer last year, protesters staged several demonstrations to oppose the import of U.S. beef products. The failure by police to handle the rallies properly triggered a public backlash.

By staging a succession of high-profile raids on sex services, police were able to demonstrate they were getting tough on crime--a time-honored populist strategy for law enforcement agencies.

According to South Korean media, police rounded up 9,317 men, 2,608 women and 2,780 companies in April and May alone on suspicion of being involved in prostitution.

It was around this time that former sex workers began turning to Japan to sustain their livelihood.

An advertisement to recruit prostitutes for work in Japan assured that: "Compared with Cheongnyangni and Yongsan (major adult entertainment districts in Seoul), the same job in Japan has a third of the hardship but three times the number of customers."

A different ad promised: "You can earn 10,000 yen in 10 minutes!"

Such offers are more appealing still for women planning to stay up to three months at a time, given they don't need visas to do so and can come and go with ease.

An officer at Gyeonggi Police Agency, which is chasing several other brokers across South Korea, said police "suspect a large number of South Korean women are engaged in prostitution not only in Kawasaki but other Japanese cities, too. We plan to expand our investigations."

On July 15, the Seoul Gangnam Police Station announced that it had arrested some people, including a broker, on suspicion of sending more than 100 South Korean women to sex-service outlets in areas such as the Uguisudani district in Tokyo's Taito Ward.

The 47-year-old broker arrested by the Gyeonggi Police Agency in May had previously managed an illegal sex business in the Horinouchi district in Kawasaki, one of the biggest sex business districts in the Kanto region, police said.

The workers were forced to have sex with customers in the shortest possible time to maximize profits.

Until early May, there were nearly 10 illegal outlets of this kind operating throughout the Horinouchi district.

The Kanagawa prefectural police suspect most of the staff were South Korean women recruited through the Internet.

They said the services were run out of buildings owned by a gangsters' organization, which charged 900,000 yen a month for rent and protection.

The Horinouchi district reportedly became a center for unauthorized brothels in the years after World War II, when sex businesses began to operate in the area in the guise of small restaurants.

At its peak, the local sex industry was strong enough to support 70 illegal businesses. Police suspect that in recent years the industry has begun to draw more of its staff from women leaving South Korea to escape increased vigilance by police on the sex trade there.

Until recently, the Koganecho district in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, was home to some 250 illegal sex businesses. In 2005, however, prefectural police launched a crackdown dubbed "Bye-bye operation" to close them or drive them out of the area.

They also raided similar businesses along the border between Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Machida, Tokyo.

Presently they are focusing their attention on the Horinouchi district, where the South Korean broker arrested in May abandoned his business after police raided it a second time.

The Horinouchi district is a 15-minute walk from JR Kawasaki Station. Its streets are dotted with the large, frosted-glass doors of tenement housing built about 50 years ago. In some of these doorways, illuminated by pink or purple lights, women can be seen touting their services to passing pedestrians.

At one business, a South Korean woman wearing a bikini top and denim miniskirt explained in poor English that she had come from Seoul three months ago and was attending a Japanese language school by day.

When asked who had introduced her to the business, she replied, "I can't tell you."

The reason she had come to Japan to work was simple: "Money."

A dozen or more musclemen stood guard on the street.

Police say it's difficult to raid these businesses because when they approach the district, they are spotted by lookouts who tip the workers off in time to close.

On July 5, however, police were able to round up 22 people at five outlets on suspicion of violating the Anti-Prostitution Law and other laws. The number of illegal outlets left has consequently fallen to just one or two.(IHT/Asahi: August 13,2009)