NotDeadYetBlog.com

Prostitutes protest crackdowns on South Korea's sex industry.

It’s not everyday that 3000 sex workers get together for a massive public demonstration. But, in Seoul that is just what happened on October 7, 2004.

Claiming that the government was trying to strip them of the “right to make a living,” the prostitutes protested a new set of government policies aimed at cracking down on the country’s sex trade. The protesters, who wore baseball caps, sunglasses, and surgical masks to conceal their identity, played traditional Korean instruments as they sang traditional Korean songs. They wanted the government to acknowledge their role in Korean society.

Now fast forward to 2009 . . .  The sex trade is alive and well.

Prostitution is still technically illegal, but it seems like a safe bet to say that a large percentage of those women who protested in 2004 are still at it.  They’d find no shortage of work here in Tongyeong, that’s for sure.

So who are these women who turned out in Seoul and make up the labor force for today’s sex trade in Korea?

A common sight in Tongyeong, dabang girls on the backs of scooters.

Here in Tongyeong, it seems that most, if not all, of the women working in the sex industry are Korean. Its a fact that Korean women do not make nearly as much as men and often times prostitution is one of the few enterprises they can turn to in times of need or if they find themselves in debt.  And the way the Korean education system is set-up steers many young women towards the business.  If you can’t keep up with your classmates then you are completely left behind, at which point employability becomes a problem, leaving an undesirable life of prostitution as one of few options.

But the Korean economy is rapidly improving and female birthrates have decreased markedly, meaning the demand for paid-for sex must be met elsewhere. 

Today’s sex workers are often foreign, coming from Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and The Philippines.  The Korean sex trade is a veritable United Nations.  But these women often do not come to South Korea knowing they will end up as sex workers. Often they are duped into thinking they are coming over to perform some other kind of work.  They get their visas and free passage to Korea before they realize what they are in for: working conditions tantamount to indentured servitude or sex slavery.

Typically the owner of the club/brothel that takes in the newly arrived girl will take her passport so that she cannot flee the country. They tell her that he passage to Korea and her room and board are expensive, and that she is in debt to them. They tell her how she can pay her debts (and earn her freedom): Sell sex.

South Korea's prostitution crackdown targeted pink-light districts, with the result being that more prostitution was forced underground.

Her manager/pimp will monitor when she comes and goes. They try to prevent an escape. Despite the fact that prostitution is illegal, pimps know that they can count on an abundance of corrupt police to return their runaway sex workers. Girls who run away can expect to be abused when they are returned. Even for those who do escape, earning a living as a foreign-born (non-English speaking) woman with a the wrong kind of can prove to be impossible, forcing girls back into the prostitution business. Theres basically no way out for these girls.

So what do we make of the fact that 3000 of these women took to the streets of Seoul to protest anti-prostitution laws? Well, here’s what I’ve got: Some of the sex workers were probably compelled by their bosses to attend. And the uproar over the potential loss of the prostitutes livelihood reflects the economic situation in S. Korea in which women have a very hard time making ends meet relative to men.  The fact that we’re talking about a large demonstration conducted in public space also speaks to the wide ranging acceptance of prostitution in Korean culture, in my opinion (Could you imagine that happening in Washington D.C.?)

So the sex trade continues in S. Korea. But the debate rages on about who is to blame for its existence. Most Korean nationalists point the finger at Japan, the United States, or both (that the latter is culpable is readily embraced by its own country’s liberal community). In my next entry, I’ll look into the validity of the claim that blame for Korea’s sex trade falls squarely on foreign shoulders. See you then.

*Update 9/17/09

Found this link at The Grand Narrative.  Its worth noting that the outcome of the anti-prostitution campaign is often the victims of human trafficking and not the traffickers themselves.