According to police reports, the numbers of brothels and streetwalkers have
dropped by one-third and one-half, respectively, over the past year. Some
red-light districts almost went out of business. Surveys show that 86 percent
of clients frequenting gay quarters curtailed their visits since the law went
into effect. Perhaps the most significant changes took place in Korean men's
consciousness in that they began to have qualms in engaging in the sex trade,
regarding women not as purchasable objects but as victims.
But not all men. In what officials call a ``balloon effect'' - if you push one
side, the other protrudes - there has been a sharp increase in irregular or
quasi-prostitution at waitress bars, karaoke rooms, massage parlors and
skincare shops. A number of Internet cafes arrange sexual encounters between
strangers after brief online chatting. Some sex workers and their customers go
abroad, together or separately, to avoid the tough crackdown at home. In this
information technology powerhouse, the sex industry is going ubiquitous.
Disappointing as it is, the hardly diminishing fad for paid sex in this country
should be no reason to abandon preventive efforts. As the special law was
mainly aimed at eliminating human rights abuses at brothels, the Ministry of
Gender Equality and Family and the police have attained considerable progress
in this regard. Rather, the partial success points to the need to continue to
enforce laws and enlighten people. Changing long-held customs and consciousness
requires prolonged strenuous efforts.
And the one-year report card clearly shows what has to be done. First, the
government should step up surveillance on the ``invisible'' prostitution that
has infiltrated residential areas. Second, it ought to provide more effective
rehabilitation programs to help more former prostitutes start new lives. The
existing self-support training course has produced quite a few cases of
successful transitions to normal life but needs to be more systematic for real
changes.
Now is the time for Koreans to get rid of the old tradition of providing commercial sex as a means of entertaining others - or ourselves. If sexual energy itself is natural and needs not be restrained, a more fundamental way could be to drop the nation's two-faced perception of sex and bring it to a more open and brighter space.
