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S. Korea in new anti-prostitution drive
By Jack Kim and Paul Eckert
September 23, 2004
Seoul - South Korea's usually bustling brothel districts have fallen silent
after police enforced stringent new anti-prostitution laws against human
traffickers, pimps and even clients.
Police who fanned out in midnight raids in Seoul's big red-light districts --
the most visible face of a trade that generates an estimated $21 billion (11.7
billion pounds) a year -- found shuttered doors and hostility from the sex
workers, they said.
"The owners and the women actually complained about losing their livelihood and
they seemed serious about it," said Park Kyung-hee, a police officer involved
in the crackdown.
The strict new laws -- which call for jail terms of up to 10 years or steep
fines for people who force women to work in brothels -- were passed earlier
this year after years of lobbying by woman's rights groups as well as brothel
fire deaths and international censure.
Park said about 100 brothel owners, prostitutes and older women who lure
customers got into an argument with women's rights activists outside the
sprawling Miari red-light district in northeastern Seoul.
"Some of the people got quite emotional," Park said, describing how police
quadrupled their forces to prevent a clash after only two dozen officers were
sent to raid the red-light zone. The prostitutes insisted they were not being
held against their will, she said.
A Seoul Metropolitan Police officer said 38 people were arrested in Seoul and
138 nationwide on day one of the crackdown.
"The number is probably small compared with what goes on in the sex trade, but
considering the widespread awareness of the crackdown, it's surprising that
there were this many," the officer said.
Seoul police officer Song Kab-su, who led pre-dawn raids in Seoul's trendy
Kangnam area, said the targeted establishments in his district were almost
completely deserted.
"We picked a massage parlour and kicked the door in and found three women, no
customers," Song said.
Illegal since 1948
Belying its image as a strait-laced, conservative Confucian society, South
Korea has one of the region's most vibrant sex industries. Prostitution has
been illegal since 1948, but is widely tolerated and ubiquitous.
The Korean Institute of Criminology conducted a survey in 2003 and found that
20 percent of adult males bought sex four times a month on average, while 4.1
percent of women in their 20s made their living from myriad forms of
prostitution.
The sex trade -- from Amsterdam-style windowed bordellos to barber shops to
special delivery coffee shops -- had annual turnover of 24 trillion won, or
four percent of gross domestic product in Asia's third-biggest economy, it
found.
The brunt of the new crackdown falls on those involved in human trafficking and
who force women into prostitution.
In 2002 in a red-light district in the southeastern city of Kunsan, 15
prostitutes were killed when the brothel where they lived and worked caught
fire. The doors were bolted from the outside and the windows barred to prevent
their escape.
The annual U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report for 2004
described South Korea as a "source, transit, and destination country" for
Southeast Asian women trafficked for sexual exploitation.
South Korea was upgraded in the previous year's report to a "tier one" country
in recognition of government efforts to crack down on the trade and to protect
and compensate victims.
The new laws call for seizure of property and heavy fines for those who run
brothels. Those caught buying sex can be jailed for up to a year and fined 3
million won.
Police say the intensive crackdown will run to October 22, after which
authorities will still enforce the new laws.
Critics argue that the campaign may simply drive the sex business underground
or to take new forms. South Korean media said previous campaigns had come and
gone and questioned if this drive would be different.
"It remains to be seen whether Seoul's tough new law will make any difference,"
Yonhap news agency said.
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