In February, it emerged that an organization sold 38 women to brothels in
Australia, New Zealand and Canada in conditions of virtual bonded labor. Police
say the organization would advance the women millions of won they had to pay
back at 60 percent interest and forced them to pay medical expenses for
diseases contracted on the job. The women had to sign up to a "code of conduct"
that fined them US$300 for arguing with customers and US$50 for showing up a
minute late to work.
At an international meeting on human traficking in Bangkok, Thailand last
October, Kim Yeong-ran of the Naeil Women's Center for Youth said an increasing
number of Korean men who go on sex tours abroad was paralleled by a growing
number of Korean sex workers going overseas. Police said it appeared that since
the Special Law on Prostitution went into effect in September, the number of
pimps and prostitutes heading overseas was rapidly increasing. But they have no
idea of the exact scale of the problem since most of the women leave the
country ostensibly for tourism.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors in the US have arrested 27 members of an
organization who fixed Korean sex workers up with jobs in San Francisco, and
are holding about 100 Korean prostitutes. In Los Angeles, which has a large
Korean population, 18 were arrested on charges of smuggling Korean prostitutes
into the country and setting them up in safe houses as part of what US
prosecutors claim was one of the biggest prostitution busts in history. The
nine-month investigation of Korean prostitution rings was codenamed "Operation
Gilded Cage."
US authorities believe the gangs sold the women to places in Los Angeles, Texas, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York and Las Vegas after smuggling them in through Mexico and Canada, where they served local and Korean clients. Most had worked as prostitutes in Korea and went overseas as domestic anti-prostitution laws started to bite. Federal prosecutors said the gangs were abusing the hopes and dreams of immigrants.
