He declined to identify himself. Instead, he uses the alias Kim Sang-jin.
"It is easy and convenient. I don't have to visit brothels to have sex,'' he
added.
Brothel owners and sex workers have taken advantage of more sophisticated
methods, including the Internet, to avoid the harsh crackdown on the sex trade
since the government enforced a special law to prevent prostitution in
September last year.
On Sunday, police arrested a 37-year-old man identified as Lee for having
arranged sexual encounters over the Internet and charged five of Lee's female
employees and 110 men without detention.
Lee and others are suspected of having arranged sex about 300 times through the
Internet in return for around 15 million won since July.
According to police, around 300 men were registered as "customers'' on the
messenger and most of them live in Kangnam, a well-to-do area in Seoul, while
working as doctors, lawyers and other high-profile office workers.
"Since the implementation of the anti-prostitution law, prostitutes have
decreased greatly in number. But some statistics show that the sex industry
continues to flourish in other forms at other places,'' said Cho Young-sook,
director of the Korea Women's Associations United (KWAU).
"Some people point out the so called "balloon effect,'' if you push one side,
the other expands. Although the number of prostitutes has decreased since last
September, there has been a sharp increase in quasi-prostitution at karaoke
rooms, massage parlors and even skincare shops,'' she said, adding that more
systematic and long-term approaches are needed.
The crackdown has triggered strong protests from those involved in the sex
industry with mounting calls for measures to protect their livelihood.
Pressed by the action against the sex trade, an increasing number of Korean
women are even being lured into human trafficking rings and forced into
prostitution abroad.
At the end of June, about 50 people were arrested by US authorities in the San
Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles on suspicion of smuggling Korean women into
the country and forcing them to work as prostitutes at massage parlors and
other businesses.
"With the domestic crackdown on prostitution strengthening, it seems an
increasing number of people are attempting to take their business overseas,"
said Sgt. Yang Sang-mo at the National Police Agency's women and juvenile
affairs division.
Police believe the number of Korean women working abroad as prostitutes is on
the rise, with cases reported not only in developed countries such as the US
and Japan, but also more recently in the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and
even Mongolia.
Cho Jin-kyoung, head of the Support Center for Victims of Sex Trafficking, said
that the move to eradicate sex trading should seek more diverse measures.
"The government should come up with diverse measures, including systematic rehabilitation programs for sex workers and support for brothel owners seeking a new means of making a living, unless it wants to see the sex industry prosper underground,'' she said.
