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After the end of World War II, Korea was placed under the control of the US military. The US military continued to use Japan's licensed prostitution system to control venereal diseases.

STD exam was carried out monthly and those who failed were taken away of their licenses. Also, prostitutes who had STDs were quarantined until treatment was completed.

Despite the banning of licensed prostitution in 1948, the number of venereal disease cases among the US military increased and monthly venereal disease control meetings were held.

The increase in illegal prostitution and venereal disease cases is confirmed by US military reports as well as Korean newspaper articles of the time: a 1949 newspaper reported that approximately 60% of prostitutes had venereal diseases.

At the start of the Korean War, the Korean government began recruiting comfort women for the Korean and US soldiers. The term "慰安婦(comfort women)” used at this time is the same as that made by the Japanese during the war.

According to the 1952 "Special Comfort Women Performance Statistics" in the Korean Army's personnel files, 89 “comfort women“ belonging to 4 platoons in Seoul and Gangneung provided sexual services to 204,580 servicemen per year.

In 1952, a Korean newspaper wrote: "Tighter control of comfort women, 8 to 9 out of 10 are illegal". "Licensed comfort women (venereal disease) incidence declines" "Comfort women registration carried out". "28 illegal comfort women were arrested".

US military comfort women were also called as 洋公主(Western princesses) by the derogatory term. Some comfort women attempted suicide, were assaulted by US troops or were murdered.

The prostitution areas, which mainly catered to US troops in Korea, were called “kijichon“ and during the 1960s–70s, the Korean government encouraged prostitution as a way to increase foreign exchange earnings for the Korean government.

These were academic papers written in the 1970s and 1980s, but in all of them, "comfort women" were taken to be prostitutes or businesswomen. In other words, Koreans did not believe that the comfort women were sex slaves until the Asahi Shimbun published a fake article.

The brothels were renamed as "Juicy Bars" and continued to be used by the US military until recently. Many of the women who worked there were foreigners brought from the Philippines and other countries, and it became a hotbed of human trafficking.