Several human smugglers and pimps in Seoul have also posted websites in Korea
urging the sex trade workers to make money overseas.
Korean media quoting local police said the sex workers are moving abroad after
new anti-prostitution laws made the world? oldest profession more difficult at
home.
They are heading for the U.S., Canada and Australia, but some settle for
countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan better known for
export rather than import of sex workers, one report said.
In North America, they apparently work in smaller cities and towns as well as
big urban centers like Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC, Toronto and
Vancouver, the report said.
Hong Kong and Europe have recently been added to the list of destinations.
It seems that since the Special Law on Prostitution went into effect, the
number of pimps and prostitutes going abroad is skyrocketing,??a police officer
said. "But we don't have the full picture since most leave the country
ostensibly for tourism."
Dedicated web groups are awash with advertisements drawing prostitutes abroad.
A typical post on one such site boasting no fewer than 1,430 members said, 'we
know that in Korea these days, unemployment, the recession and the Special Law
on Prostitution make it hard to earn even half of what you made before. Try a
new W8 million a month (CDN$9,500 to CDN$12,000) in a bar, W18-24 million
(C$21,000 to C$28,500) a month in a massage parlor guaranteed. Advances
possible. We take care of visas and bad credit.'
There are dozens of groups on the Internet portal site Daum that hook up women
looking for work abroad with pimps.
Most of the sites require detailed member registration. To join one group
(www.cafe.daum.net/goldgold486) with 320 members, applicants must indicate
their height, age, weight and work experience and upload a genuine photograph.
This month, federal prosecutors in the U.S. arrested about 50 members of two
criminal organizations who fixed Korean sex workers up with jobs in San
Francisco.
They are now holding about 100 Korean prostitutes, many of whom are believed to
have entered the United States after arriving in Vancouver or Toronto.
U.S. prosecutors claim the bust was one of the biggest prostitution takedowns
in history. The nine-month investigation of Korean prostitution rings was
codenamed 'Operation Gilded Cage.'
The women allegedly worked as prostitutes at 10 massage parlors in and around
San Francisco.
Authorities said the alleged San Francisco sex ring involved an elaborate
operation that used a travel service to entice and bring in young women from
South Korea and a cab company to shuttle them between brothels.
Authorities believe that operators of the alleged sex ring targeted women from
impoverished parts of South Korea. The operators allegedly told the women they
could work as waitresses and bar hostesses in America if each paid a fee of
C$12,300 to C$18,600.
The fate of the women will hinge on whether prosecutors determine they were
forced to work against their will or whether they participated in the sex ring
voluntarily, said Bradley Schlozman, acting assistant U.S. attorney general for
civil rights.
The women, who are being kept at an undisclosed location, will be considered
victims of human trafficking if they were forced to participate in labor or
commercial sexual activity, Schlozman said.
"The women need not have been locked in a room in order to be a victim of a
severe form of trafficking," he said. "Maybe they've been forced to do this in
order to pay off a debt that is unreasonable, and maybe there have been threats
to their families or to them. It's a whole variety of considerations."
If they are found to have been victims, then the women will be provided with
help from private organizations.
Ivy Lee, an attorney with Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach in San
Francisco, said the immediate tasks would be getting the women health care,
counseling and help for their children and finding them a safe place to stay,
likely in a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
"We would focus on stabilizing her situation and trying to explain to her what
her situation is," she said. "A lot of them are going to be confused about what
the hell is going on. 'What's happening to me? What are my options? Am I going
to jail? And also, who are all these people?'"
If law enforcement requires them to stay in the United States to help with the
investigation, the women are entitled to the same health coverage, cash
assistance and English classes that refugees and those seeking asylum receive,
Lee said.
The women can at any time decide to return to South Korea, although law
enforcement officials could then declare them a 'material witnesses' to the
case, forcing them to stay in the United States without any benefits.
The women can simultaneously apply for visas, which will allow them 'as
trafficking victims willing to cooperate with law enforcement' to stay for an
additional three years. They are then eligible to apply for green cards.
Lee said one of the biggest threats to the women is if the alleged traffickers
hire attorneys to find the women and offer them legal assistance. In the past,
she said, lawyers for alleged traffickers would lure the women back into a sex
ring.
Last 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 CDN $372 for
arguing with customers and CDN $62 for showing up a minute late to work.
At an international meeting on human trafficking 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.
The U.S. State Department in a report last month said Canada is a primary
destination and transit country for women trafficked for the purposes of labor
and sexual exploitation.
The Trafficking in Persons Report 2005 said the majority of foreign victims
transiting Canada are bound for the United States. Numbers are hard to gauge,
but in February 2004, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimated that
800 persons are trafficked into Canada annually and that an additional
1,500-2,200 persons are trafficked through Canada into the United States. Some
estimate that this number is much higher.
The report said law enforcement efforts in key provinces like British Columbia
- through which a significant number of Korean and other female victims are
trafficked to the United States - were weak in 2004.
Canada struggles to identify trafficking victims inside clandestine migrant
smuggling operations. There are growing concerns that South Koreans and others
may be abusing the lack of a visa requirement to enter Canada to facilitate the
trafficking of men and women, mainly to the United States.
To enhance its anti-trafficking efforts, Canada needs to use its
anti-trafficking law to vigorously increase investigations, arrests,
prosecutions, and convictions of traffickers, especially those who may be
abusing visa waivers and entertainment visas.
In British Columbia, a transit zone for trafficking to the United States, there
has been few convictions, the report said.
Additionally, there continues to be anecdotal reports of large numbers of South
Korean women trafficked through Canada to the United States. The lack of a visa
requirement to enter Canada, lack of prosecutions, and an inability to
determine the scope of the problem has made Canada, particularly British
Columbia, an attractive trafficking hub for East Asian traffickers.
Airline passenger analysis shows that the number of Koreans returning to Korea
on flights from Vancouver Canada is 25 percent less than the number arriving on
flights from Korea, but the ties to trafficking are not known.
Observers believe that several hundred South Koreans have been trafficked through Canada to the U.S. since 2000, but they state that this estimate is modest.
