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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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 Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 1:37 pm Post subject: What will call girls do for a living now? |
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http://www.stripes.com/news/s-korea-bar-girls-bemoan-deployment-effects-but-applaud-prostitution-ban-1.24863
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S. Korea bar girls bemoan deployment effects, but applaud prostitution ban
By Seth Robson
Stars and Stripes
Published: October 10, 2004
24805_10914560.jpg
"Rain," a Filipina bar worker, stands outside some of the Toka-ri nightclubs that are suffering after the departure of 2nd Infantry Division soldiers who are deployed to Iraq. She says she ran away from her South Korean employers after they tried to force her to strip for club patrons.
Seth Robson / S&S
TONGDUCHON, South Korea � Nightclub workers in Tongduchon have praised U.S. Army plans to make it illegal for soldiers to pay for sex, but they also complain they�re short of work after the recent deployment of thousands of South Korea-based U.S. troops to Iraq.
Next year, troops buying sex could face dishonorable discharge and jail time under a proposed change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And right now, U.S. Forces Korea officials are aggressively pursuing a �zero tolerance� policy against prostitution and human trafficking.
South Korean police embarked last month on a nationwide sex-trade crackdown, resulting in hundreds of arrests. [See related story]
The Pentagon wants to add to the UCMJ a charge specifically addressing prostitution and affixing a maximum punishment of one year of confinement and a dishonorable discharge for anyone convicted of paying a prostitute for sex.
In Tongduchon, the South Korean town surrounding some of the largest U. S. bases in South Korea � Camp Casey and Camp Hovey � weekend nights are quieter since the deployment of 3,600 2nd Infantry Division troops to Iraq in August.
In Toka-ri, a section of Tongduchon infamous for its brothels catering to soldiers, most nightclubs are now closed on weekends. Club workers, mainly young Filipinas, said many of the women who used to work in the clubs now are unemployed or have moved to Pyongtaek, the town surrounding the largest U.S. airbase in South Korea, Osan Air Base.
�Rain,� a Filipina former club worker, said she had not heard about the Army�s move to outlaw prostitution but said she supported it � � because all the ones affected here are Filipina women. The Koreans are forcing them to do that business (prostitution).�
The woman, who didn�t want her real name used, came to South Korea on an entertainer�s visa last year. But when she arrived in the country expecting to sing in a nightclub, she was ordered to dance topless by a nightclub owner. Rain ended up running away from her employer with six other Filipinas, she said.
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Now she works as a �drinkie girl� in Tongduchon, getting soldiers to buy her drinks at $10 a shot, with the vast majority of that money going to the club owner. Her conditions of employment are not ideal. On her day off, she is allowed to leave the nightclub between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., but after that she must be in her room or pay a $100 fine, she said.
�And the food sucks � always eggs and noodles, every day,� she said.
Another former Toka-ri club worker, �Myra,� also supported penalties for soldiers who buy sex.
�We need that law so it can stop, and Filipinas can come here and work decently, not be forced by Koreans into prostitution,� she said, sipping a cocktail in a dark upstairs bar on a recent night, while heavy-metal videos played on monitors strung about the ceiling and young soldiers chowed down on a pizza at the bar.
Myra, whose two daughters live with her parents in the Philippines, also ran away from a nightclub manager who forced her to prostitute herself to U.S. soldiers, she said.
A South Korean police spokesman said in July that Myra�s manager, identified only as Park, of Smackers nightclub, and another Toka-ri club manager, Hwang, of X-Club, had been charged with illegally detaining Filipina workers and that they were likely to face human trafficking charges.
Myra said she is trying to find a job in South Korea while she waits for a civil claim against Park to go to court. However, she feared for her safety because Park recently was released from jail and there were rumors that she and other Toka-ri nightclub owners were seeking retribution, Myra said.
Myra hoped the current South Korean crackdown on prostitution and the proposed UCMJ law would start a change in the club industry at Tongduchon.
�The girls [working in clubs] maybe should tone down their clothing and not wear bikini tops. If they (soldiers) could lose their jobs, they will just see the girls in the clubs and not do anything illegal and that is good,� she said. |
If you wonder how they will make a living, don't worry, they still have Korean men.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2010/09/162_59362.html
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01-20-2010 17:01 여성 음성 듣기 남성 음성 듣기
Sex Industry in Korea
By Mathias Specht
In downtown Seoul, practically every lamp post and traffic light is plastered with posters promoting fitness center memberships or the opening of a new restaurant. The sidewalks are covered with fliers, often tossed en masse out of slowly moving cars.
And walking through the popular evening entertainment districts, such as the one in Shinchon, which is in convenient proximity to Yonsei University and not-so-fittingly right next to an elementary school, one can't help but notice a particular form of such marketing ― colorful pictures of barely-dressed women in compromising poses printed on glossy paper roughly the size of a credit card. Some of them carry short phrases such as ``female students" or ``wet massage" and others just a cell phone number, but all advertise call girl services.
Despite their prevalence, the colorful call girl ``trading cards" are really nothing more than the tip of a dark iceberg floating under the surface of Korean society. Although Korea is, at least by European standards, a rather prudish country ― judging from its laws on pornography and the frequently recurring waves of general outrage over the ``decayed morals" in cultures such as Japan or in the West ― prostitution is more than rampant.
While there is not too much official data to go by, numbers released by the Institute of Criminology state that prostitution constituted 4.1 percent of the country's GDP in 2003. To put this in perspective, the forestry, fishing and agricultural sectors together generated only 4.4 percent. The study further revealed that one in five men in South Korea buy sex more than four times a month and 4.1 percent of women in their 20s make a living as prostitutes.
Estimates by the Korean Feminist Association have put the last figure even higher with a total of 1.2 million women working in the sex industry. A quick look at the country's demographics renders this figure even more remarkable. At the time of the estimate, roughly 17 million women between 15 and 64 were living in Korea. Let's assume that women between 18 and 35 make up the group most likely to be employed in this line of work ― a total of 6.6 million women. This would mean that one in six women in Korea in the relevant age group work in the sex industry.
Regardless of whether the government's figures or the independent estimate is closer to reality, the number remains mind-boggling. Still, many Koreans might find that they have at least subconsciously been aware of this situation all along. At least to me, as someone who has spent the past few years here and whose friends, colleagues, business partners and other social contacts are almost exclusively Koreans, this reality, as grim as it may be, is not really astonishing. Prostitution just seems to be everywhere in Korea.
In the light of its prevalence and how openly it is being advertised and practiced, it might come as a surprise to most foreigners that prostitution is in fact illegal and has been so since 1948.
Buying sex is currently punishable by up to one year in prison, and advertising or organizing it by up to three years. However, maybe there is no need to be overly preoccupied by the punishments, since despite its prevalence and clearly being illegal, the Korean police are doing anything but a thorough job in fighting it.
The introduction of the Sex Trade Prevention Act in 2004, which was partly a response to ongoing international pressure on Korea to combat local sex trafficking, has not changed much. During the subsequent widely-publicized governmental crackdowns, a number of arrests have been made, but usually customers and prostitutes were targeted, while the pimps continued their businesses. Even well-known red light districts such as the one at Cheongnyangni Station continue to exist despite the fact they should be relatively easy to shut down if the government had a real interest in doing so.
Other government initiatives seem ridiculous at best, such as the offer of cash rewards by the Ministry for Gender Equality in 2006 to companies whose male workers promised to refrain from buying sex after office drinking evenings. I cannot think of another country where citizens are paid by the government for promising to not violate current laws.
And so, although a few years have passed since the estimates cited above, I would not be surprised if the sex industry in Korea has shifted from the red light districts of the post-war years to upscale massage parlors and call girls, but remains largely unchanged in overall size.
If one adds to the apparently huge demand for prostitution services in Korea and the reluctance or inability of the government to curtail it, it might seem like a sensible recommendation to just legalize it. First of all, this would be a way out of the unpleasant situation in which Korea is presently stuck, where the law is being violated in plain view on every street corner and the police are unable or unwilling to do anything about it.
To me at least, it seems questionable how young people can grow up to respect the law and reject corruption under such clear double standards. Second, this would allow the government to tax the enormous profits of the industry, where, according to the Korean Institute of Criminology, 20 percent of adult males aged between 20-64 purchase sex at an average of 693,000 won ($580) per month. These profits, by the way, seem to be recession proof, making the argument all the more valid.
Finally and most importantly, it would bring prostitution out of the gray area of illegality, allowing the regulation of the industry, the provision of health care and tax benefits for sex workers and their protection against abuse and crime.
Also, openly addressing this issue in a government-regulated framework could be an effective first step in dealing with other issues involving prostitution that so far have gone under the radar. These include child prostitution (according to a 2006 study by the Busan Metropolitan Police, 17.6 percent of local teenage prostitutes first sold sex between the ages of 13 and 14 and 58.8 percent between the ages of 15 and 16), sex trafficking (the government continues to facilitate this practice by offering suspicious ``entertainer visas" that require HIV tests) and whatever truth there is to recurring reports that the large share of female entertainers in Korea are being forced to perform sexual services in their jobs.
I will refrain from speculating about what drives Korea's insatiable appetite for bought sex, simply because I don't believe that I could without more research. (To be complete, such a study would have to add to this hunger the steadily-expanding sex tourism industry to countries such as the Philippines, where Korean men leave a trail of abandoned children behind). However, while I don't believe we will see prostitution vanish from modern society any time soon, the significance it plays in a country, expressed by its prevalence, does seem to say something fundamental about the health of that nation. And social factors such as sexual repression, unfulfilling marriages, group pressure, a lack of respect for respect for women or a combination of these come to mind as likely motives.
The writer is an MBA graduate of Yonsei University and founder of the Korean company Stelence International. He is currently writing a book about Korea and can be reached at [email protected]. |
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sojusucks
Joined: 31 May 2008
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| Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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Hmmm ... this might just work, except that it is from 2006 and no significant changes thus far 
[url]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6209549.stm[/url]
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S Koreans offered cash for no sex
Male workers who vow to stay away from prostitutes after year-end celebrations in South Korea are to be rewarded.
The Ministry for Gender Equality is offering cash to companies whose male employees pledge not to pay for sex after office parties.
Men are being urged to register on the ministry's website. The companies with most pledges will receive a reward.
Officials say they want to put an end to a culture in which men get drunk at parties and go on to buy sex.
But some critics have described the move as a waste of money.
Despite new anti-prostitution laws passed in 2004, the practice is said to be widespread in South Korea, with some estimates suggesting more than one million people work in the sex industry. |
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Koreadays
Joined: 20 May 2008
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| Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2010 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| South Korean police embarked last month on a nationwide sex-trade crackdown, resulting in hundreds of arrests. |
didn't seem to affect my street, twin barber polls spinning as usual, room salons and glass windows all in full operation. if they call that a police crack down. I'd hate to think what they will do in a G20 attack. they are all dead LOL |
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