For decades the US military in South Korea
has colluded with the prostitution industry that
grew up around its bases.
In 2002, Fox Television broadcast an exposé on the
rampant human trafficking taking place in the Korean
“camptowns,” and the Department of Defense found
itself awash in negative publicity. The DoD Inspector
General subsequently launched an investigation of
the United States Forces Korea (USFK), and in
August 2003, recommended policy changes to combat
human trafficking. But the USFK’s response has
amounted to a whitewash operation, while business -
and sex slavery - carry on as usual.
Over the decades, rarely, if ever, has public outcry
tempered the role of the armed forces in the greater
Asian “sex and entertainment” industry. But Fox
Television’s program on trafficked sex workers in
Dongducheon, near Camp Casey, South Korea
generated a surge in media interest and placed
congressional pressure on the Department of
Defense (DoD) to take action; where prostitution had
failed as an issue to generate protest, cross-border
trafficking succeeded.
The DoD Inspector General’s 2003 report contained a
range of recommendations, and listed steps the USFK
had already taken to address the problem. Most
significantly, the report claimed that the USFK had
made 687 establishments across South Korea off-
limits to military personnel. American press coverage
virtually ceased, and those advocating change either
professed satisfaction with the progress being made,
or withheld comment due to lack of additional
information.
Human trafficking is the coerced or fraudulent
transport of people to provide cheap labor. While
prostitution and human trafficking are linked, the latter
takes many forms, of which sex slavery is only one.
Sex workers, domestic workers, agricultural workers,
and others are “imported” all over the world from a
variety of “export” regions. Furthermore, not all
prostitutes are trafficked; sex workers enter the
industry through numerous routes. Poverty remains a
primary predictor both of the countries which end up
exporting sex slaves, and of women who are coerced
or compelled into sex work within their own countries.
The Bush administration has perhaps done more to
address the issue of human trafficking than any of its
predecessors, yet the US Department of Defense
hasn’t stopped the trafficking of women into clubs
patronized almost exclusively by US military personnel.
In 2000, with strong bi-partisan support, President
Bush signed into law the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act (TVPA), making such victims eligible for public
benefits, and establishing the Office to Monitor and
Combat Trafficking in Persons within the State
Department. Since then, the State Department has
published annual reports on human trafficking;
instituted a three-tiered system listing countries
according to the degree to which they comply with the
TVPA; and established an associated set of penalties
if they do not. However, despite this activity, little
seemed to affect the Defense Department until the
2002 Fox news exposé.
The Fox segment and subsequent media coverage
showed that the trafficked women in the Korean
camptowns were primarily from the Philippines,
Russia, and ex-Soviet republics. These women
explained that they were offered jobs as hostesses or
entertainers. Upon arrival in the country, they found
that their jobs consisted of getting customers to buy
over-priced drinks (“juicies”) in special establishments
designated off-limits to Koreans in deference to US
military security policies. Military personnel refer to the
women trapped in these clubs as “juicy girls,” or
“juicies.” In the unhealthful and oppressive conditions
of the camptown clubs, the women quickly discovered
that selling drinks did not generate enough revenue to
pay back bar owners their ever-increasing debts -
accrued for any number of highly arbitrary reasons,
such as not smiling enough. One choice typically
remained if they were to pay their debts: selling sexual
services.
These trafficked women were experiencing what South
Korean women had experienced for decades - until
the improving economy provided them with a greater
range of options. Beginning in the 1990s, camptown
club owners reacted to the shrinking G.I. dollar and
the flight of South Korean “juicy girls” to higher-paying
venues by “importing” women from poorer countries -
both legally, on E-6 “entertainment visas,” and
illegally, via forged papers and other means. Filipina
women in particular, because of their English skills,
were targeted to cater to the American GIs.
In the wake of the Fox exposé, David Goodman, an
Academy Award winning filmmaker, went to South
Korea in October, 2003 as part of his research for a
documentary on the US military and human trafficking.
His assessment of the DoD’s August, 2003 report: “It’s
a total whitewash.... [When I was there] I went to five
clubs every night. They closed a few, but not most of
them. Not by a long shot.” In various camptowns he
observed scenarios similar to those portrayed in the
2002 Fox program, including that of American MPs
policing the clubs where women who had been
trafficked were trapped. Many establishments remain
open despite obvious evidence that they traffic women.
Lorna Lee, a social worker who has worked with the
camptown women since 1999, adds that in most
cases, clubs placed off-limits simply re-open a couple
of weeks later under a different name. When asked
what changes had been made by the USFK since the
August, 2003 report, Lee said, “I laughed at the report
when I saw it.” She continued: “I don’t really notice any
changes on the USFK side. I have talked with soldiers
and asked them if they get education on trafficking,
and their first response is that they never got it, and I
press them to really think, and [I] say, ‘We have been
told that you get this education,’ but they don’t have
the impression that they get any intensive
education...” The USFK Civil Affairs Office says that
the “Human Trafficking core curriculum is presently
being staffed.”
Along with designating clubs off-limits and improving
education, another recommendation in the August
report was the installation of a “crime stoppers hotline”
for use in reporting “any suspicious activity related to
prostitution or human trafficking.” But as of March,
2004, the USFK civil affairs office reported only one
phone call that resulted in a club closure.
Jaz Peralta, a counselor at My Sister’s Place, a South
Korean NGO formed in 1986 to help the camptown
women, backs up the assessments of Goodman and
Lee. “Not much has changed really in Korea,” she
writes. “Two years ago Togkori (a notorious area near
Camp Casey) was ‘cleaned up’ after Fox TV reported
about this area. However, it has returned to its original
practices.”
The USFK civil affairs office admits that, of the original
687 establishments that were originally placed off-
limits across the country, only 618 remain on the list.
Furthermore, an unspecified number of those
remaining are not “known houses of prostitution,” but
were placed off-limits for “force protection” reasons -
such as failure to inspect backpacks. The USFK also
says that, out of 81 clubs in Dongducheon, one of the
most notorious camptowns and the focus of the Fox
exposé, only five clubs are currently off-limits.
Goodman spent time not only in Dongducheon and
the Itaewon district in Seoul, but also near the DMZ in
places such as the camptown close to Camp Howse.
Here, virtually all the women in the clubs were
trafficked, according to Goodman, and experienced
the harshest conditions. “These clubs would have
anywhere from two to ten women. All of them lived in
the back rooms, and sleep four or five to a room.
There was no way that they could escape.”
Supporting the testimony of Peralta, Goodman, and
Lee are three different Yahoo-based list-serves in
which US servicemen talk about the camptowns near
their bases. Complaints surface occasionally about
new rules in place - such as bans on lap-dancing and
bar-fines (the fee paid to obtain the exclusive
company of a female entertainer during her working
hours). However, numerous recent postings confirm
that sex for money is still readily available. One soldier
stated baldly, “I went into Songtan four nights straight,
once to 6:00 AM.... My initial observation is that if you
only want some quick pussy and are willing to pay $75
- $100 for it, the sluts are not hard to find.”
The men posting to the newsgroups are well aware of
the women’s countries of origin. One writer
commented, “As for what’s happening here now,
despite predictions, all the import girls haven’t been
deported. Girls are still making there [sic] way back to
Korea with valid visas.” Racist and sexist stereotypes
about the Filipina women abound, and men give each
other advice on how to interact with the “juicies” to
their own advantage.
Hyun Ung Goh, head of the Seoul office of the
International Organization for Migration, confirms that
virtually all Filipina women trafficked for the sex and
entertainment industry in South Korea cater to the
military camptowns. (Russian women also cater to
native Koreans around the country.) Immersed in the
debts incurred to the camptown club owners, almost
70% of Filipinas surveyed by the Korean Ministry of
Gender and Equality reported offering sexual services
for money, from touching and fondling to sexual
intercourse.
The Ministry’s survey report, dated March, 2004, says
that in 2002, 1,726 Filipina migrant women entered
South Korea legally or illegally. This number
apparently represents a decline over recent years.
There are 37,000 US servicemen and servicewomen
currently stationed in the country. Not even including
Filipina women who remain in South Korea for more
than a year, the ratio works out to roughly one newly
trafficked Filipina woman per every twenty-one
members of the US military in the country.
The Philippine embassy in Seoul and the Korean
government could also do more to stem the tide of
trafficked Filipinas. For example, the Philippine
embassy now refuses to accept applicants sponsored
by the Korea Special Tourist Association, a network of
camptown club owners - and a historical collaborator
with the US military in managing the camptown
entertainment business, according to Dr. Katharine
Moon’s book, Sex Among Allies. Recently, the South
Korean government announced that it is planning to
eradicate red light districts across the country, starting
in 2007.
The mainstream media discussion of the US military
camptowns both highlights and occludes the
complexity of the issues involved. The international
sex industry in Asia is huge. The US military
represents only a fraction of it, and therefore those
working on the issue of human trafficking hope to
sustain a broader discussion. Yet, there are under-
reported stories of US forces bolstering the demand
for trafficked women elsewhere, such as within the
Philippines, as well. Additionally, very little reporting
has focused on the problem of GIs who refuse to
accept parental responsibility for children they father -
some of whom themselves end up in the sex trade as
the years go by. And the US Military Pacific Command’
s “liberty” policies contrast markedly with the stricter
policies followed under the US Central Command in
countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan
- a fact that raises the larger question of
recommendations for the military as a whole.
The misery caused by male US military personnel’s
exploitation of women in South Korea, and the DoD
collusion with these institutionalized violations of
human rights, continues, and will continue until
sustained outrage forces the military to truly change
its practices.
prostitution and human trafficking
|
Sex Slaves
* How women are lured into South Korea's flesh trade
* How top U.S. commanders turn a blind eye even as troops
are the racket's best customers
By William H. McMichael
Times staff writer
August 12, 2002
All of the women quoted in this story are real. They
asked that their real names not be used because of
embarrassment and fear of retaliation from bar owners
and police. Many of the service members quoted also
asked that their full names not be used for similar
reasons - embarrassment and fear of retaliation from
others in the military.
SONGTAN, Republic of Korea - Lana came to South
Korea for the money. Back home in the Kyrgyz
Republic, where she toiled in a shoe factory for $20 a
month, she longed to buy an apartment, but the
$5,000 price tag seemed impossibly high.
Then she saw a newspaper ad seeking women to
dance and talk with U.S. servicemen in nightclubs in
South Korea. The ad promised what for her was an
astounding wage - $2,000 in the first six months.
Lana, a bright, attractive blond, took the job.
Now, she wishes she hadn't.
The nine months she has worked in clubs that dot the
half-mile strip running straight away from the front
gate of the U.S. Air Force's Osan Air Base have left
her with eyes far too world-weary for a 24-year-old.
Stripped of her passport by her bar owner, in fear of
corrupt South Korean police and deeply in debt to her
new bosses, she was forced to sell sex to American
servicemen.
She became, in essence, a sex slave.
In South Korea, there are hundreds, perhaps
thousands of Lanas, trafficked women who work in
clubs, many of which cater, often exclusively, to
American troops.
The U.S. State Department and the United Nations
have condemned the growing, worldwide trafficking of
women. Millions of trafficked women are forced to work
as prostitutes in countries around the world, according
to the International Organization for Migration. The
State Department has an entire office headed by an
ambassador-level official devoted to eradicating what
it calls a "scourge."
But, U.S. military commanders here only grudgingly
acknowledge the trafficking.
"Does it exist in Korea? The State Department says
so," said Air Force Maj. Gen. James Soligan, U.S.
Forces Korea's deputy chief of staff.
The command says South Korean sovereignty
prevents the military from taking action to halt sexual
slavery even as it routinely sends military police into
the clubs to make sure American servicemen are safe
and well-behaved.
At least 13 members of Congress want the military to
do more than that. They told Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld in a recent letter that servicemen
frequenting the bars are "helping to line the pockets of
human traffickers" and called for an investigation. The
Defense Department inspector general has begun an
investigation.
The trafficking is so open and widely known that one
Air Force sergeant at Osan Air Base said any
commander who didn't know about it was an "ostrich."
The military's inaction rankles some human-rights
advocates. They think the U.S. military, because of its
widespread presence and unique role in South
Korean society, can help fight the trade in women.
Reydeluz D. Conferido, labor attache at the Philippine
Embassy in Seoul, leads an effort to rescue Filipina
bar girls. He said the United States "has to show
leadership in this area, as much as it is exhibiting
leadership in other areas, like the war on terrorism.
"This is terrorism of the most base type."
Many women in same situation
Lana's story is repeated, with little variation, by scores
of foreign women. Seven nights a week, Lana dances
and sweet-talks airmen into buying her $10 shots of
fruit juice that give the job its risque title, "juicy girl."
But that's only part of the story.
In the three months she worked at her first club, she
only had to push drinks. But the manager paid her
nothing, claiming Lana owed thousands of dollars for
her travel and upkeep.
She realized she'd never work herself out of debt by
pushing juicy drinks alone. Escape didn't seem
possible. The male manager, or ajushi, at her first club
had taken her passport. Foreign women who flee their
jobs without paying off their debts and without
passports and valid visas typically are returned to the
bar owners by corrupt cops, according to the top
South Korean police expert on prostitution.
Lana's bar owner moved her to another club, Lazy
Days, where she began trying to work her way out of
debt by hustling servicemen to pay $100 to $350 "bar
fines" to take her to a nearby hotel for sex.
Lana works every day, beginning at 5 p.m. and
finishing up at the U.S. military curfew - 1 a.m. on
weekends. If she has left the club for paid sex, she
must return to work early the next afternoon. Home is
a three-room apartment she shares with nine other
bar girls. A video camera mounted over the front door
monitors who comes and goes. She is allowed a
half-hour of freedom each day.
These are her experiences during one such break.
Wearing a gray T-shirt with the words "Pray Hard" on
it, she said wearily, "Me no be off for three months."
Lana represents the changing face of prostitution in
South Korea. For five decades, U.S. troops have
consorted with prostitutes working near U.S. bases,
and for most of that time the women were Korean.
But over the past six years, the scene has changed.
The Korean women who worked the clubs are largely
gone. This is partly explained by an improved
economy, changing tastes, the stigma associated with
working in the clubs and a drastically slowed female
birth rate due to widespread aborting of female
fetuses by families in search of male heirs.
Now, the clubs are filled with women like Lana -
foreigners, most of whom agreed to come to South
Korea to work as dancers and barmaids only to be
coerced into prostitution. They come from Russia,
Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Philippines and
elsewhere. Some come with university degrees, some
have little education. Most quickly gain prodigious
street smarts. All are enticed by the prospect of
making far more money in a short time than they ever
could back in their poverty-stricken homelands.
MPs watch over clubs
About a mile southeast of Tongduchon, just outside
the U.S. Army's Camp Hovey in the northern reaches
of South Korea, six stern, broad-shouldered military
police wearing black armbands over their camouflaged
shirtsleeves stood on the corner outside the Olympus
Club and at least a dozen others walked the nearby
streets. Inside the dimly lit club, loud, slow rock music
pounded the ears.
The club's 18 or so women, dressed in black bikini
tops and miniskirts slit up the sides, were scattered
throughout the club: standing at the padded bar on
the right, ordering drinks or checking out new arrivals;
seductively slow dancing with off-duty troops on the
dance floor; talking or making out with troops in the
padded, high-backed booths; or lap dancing, grinding
suggestively as they straddled seated troops.
All the women appeared to be from former Soviet
states. Natasha, with heavy eye makeup and dark
hair, sidled up to a visitor seated in a booth. She
smiled, made small talk and then asked for a $10 juice
drink. When she brought it back, she sat again and
asked, "You want dance?"
Natasha said she lives at the club. It's not clear exactly
where, although one of the several doors leading from
the main room features a double deadbolt, mirroring
doorways in and near other clubs frequented by
troops. She comes from southern Russia and said her
manager is Russian as well. Natasha said she has her
passport, but it's unclear whether it contains a valid
visa.
"I don't like Korea," she said.
Meanwhile, a military policeman entered and stared
hard at the nonmilitary American visitors, as though
they didn't belong here.
For military customers, the lure of these bars is
obvious.
"It's a hardship tour. There's basically nothing you can
do. You can only work out so much," said Brian, a
beefy private first class stationed in the cluster of
bases that stand between Seoul and the demilitarized
zone. "We go out to the clubs. There's very few clubs
that don't have "VIP" rooms, where you can take the
girls upstairs for sex," Brian said.
While officials with U.S. Forces Korea do not condone
the trafficking of women, Soligan said there is little the
U.S. military can do. It is bound to respect South
Korean sovereignty and limits its own law-enforcement
activities to U.S. troops themselves.
Soligan said, "We don't go out and ask people in
restaurants and bars, 'Do you have a passport? Are
you being paid below minimum wage?'"
Yet some troops who frequent the bar scene said their
commanders must be aware that trafficked women are
selling sex in the clubs.
"If they don't know what's going on, they're fools," said
"M," an Air Force sergeant stationed at Osan Air Base
who is friendly with a Russian woman working in one of
the clubs.
"They know that the women are trafficked," said
Anthony, an Army sergeant and veteran of the clubs
north of Seoul. "But they know they can't do anything
because of the political situation. So all they can do is
say, "Hey, be careful.'"
Paying for sex isn't a universal pastime. Many troops
stationed in South Korea don't go to bars. Many more
go only for drinks, games and conversation. In
metropolitan Seoul, where there's much more of
everything to do outside the gates, troops say it's
easier to meet women without paying for the privilege.
Those who do pay often visit "Hooker Hill," barely a
mile up from the main gate of Seoul's Yongsan Army
Garrison, the largest U.S.-leased facility in South
Korea. The steep hill, packed with small clubs with
names like Polly's Kettle House and the UpTown Club,
is regularly watched at night by U.S. military police
patrols.
The mix of women here is different from what is found
in clubs outside Seoul.
"Not many Russians and Filipinas here," said Lucky, a
busty, heavily made-up, 40-plus Korean working in the
Coyote Ugly bar at the top of the hill. "We hate the
Russian girls. They started to come five years ago."
Lucky wasn't sure why the Filipinas and Russians
hadn't overwhelmed Hooker Hill clubs, nor was anyone
else. But the red-light district is an international draw
as well as a troop magnet. Most of those strolling
around figured that it's a matter of supply and demand
and that here, the Korean women remain popular.
The troops who frequent the bars throughout South
Korea say they know the women who work there are
trying to get money, but may not know the pressure
the trafficked women are under to generate sales and
pay down their debts.
Lana, for instance, earns a base salary of $350 a
month. But each month, she's also expected to
generate 300 tickets - chits for juice drinks and paid
sex - for the club. One hundred dollars' worth of work
brings 10 tickets. Some nights are slow.
Lana's first club, the Phoenix, didn't force her to
accept bar fines - that is, have sex with customers. But
at Lazy Days, she said, "They always want, want,
want, want." The ajushi pushes her to "dance, drink
juice and bar fine" and yells at the women if they don't
generate enough tickets.
"Every day, stress," she said.
Soldiers and airmen in South Korea say that only the
newest or most naive troops could be unaware that
many if not most of the women in these clubs are here
illegally.
In interviews over a three-week period with dozens of
women in more than 50 clubs in Tongduchon,
Uijongbu, Seoul, Songtan and Pusan, the women's
illegal status seemed universal. One had only to ask.
With the exception of those encountered in Seoul,
every woman interviewed both inside and outside
clubs said she was trafficked.
"A friend called me and said, 'Want to go to Korea and
earn big money?'" said "Monica," 25, a Filipina who
ended up working seven months at the Palace Club in
Tongduchon.
Monica came from the Philippines to earn better
money to help raise her 3-year-old son, who is being
cared for by her parents. Before she came to South
Korea, she was earning 200 pesos a day - about $4 -
doing department store promotions.
When Monica arrived at the gritty, smoke-filled Palace
Club last winter to work as an "entertainer," she said,
"I shocked, because it's my first time go there. And I
cry. I saw the girl dancing, wearing a thong and bra.
And I see the girls sitting in the lap of GIs."
"It's like a hell," she said.
If a soldier wanted to pay her bar fine, she was
pressured to go along and paid a penalty of increased
indebtedness if she didn't. She also did her best to
stay drunk, saying she couldn't bring herself to dance
and work if she were sober.
Monica gave up her passport to one of the insistent
promotion managers who worked for the broker who
brought her to South Korea. In June, after six months
of work, the club owner tried to intimidate Monica to
sign a new contract, she said.
She recounted the conversation: "You sign!" he said. I
said, "I want to go home, I want to go back to
Philippines." He said, "No, I pay lots of money for you.
If you want to go, OK, you pay your penalty." I asked,
"How much?" He said, "$3,000." But he knows I don't
have enough money to pay that contract because I
only earn a little."
She signed the contract, but "after I sign, I run away."
Monica said she and a friend escaped June 4 with the
help of Father Glenn, a soft-spoken 39-year-old
Catholic priest who works long hours to rescue and
shelter Filipina club women and return them to their
homes. He also arranged for the return of their
passports.
"For me, he's a hero," Monica said. "He don't care if
he gets in trouble with the big man because he fight
with the big man here in Korea. He's not afraid."
Getting out isn't easy
Escape is a difficult option for the women, who fear
what will happen if they try and fail.
While few women reported being physically harmed,
some said the potential is there, which for many is a
strong influence.
"But control isn't always a physical thing," said
Conferido, the Philippine labor attache.
"See it from the gender perspective," said Conferido,
who also operates a shelter for rescued Filipinas.
"See what is the feeling of that woman, isolated from
familial support, social support, put in a dark place
where she cannot understand the language, bullied,
shouted at, scolded - how intimidating that can be for
the woman so she can be forced into doing things that
she doesn't like, like giving up her passport, like going
out to sell sex."
This nonphysical intimidation "can be as threatening
as a sword drawn," Conferido said.
Some women go into the work knowing what awaits
them. "For some, it's comfortable," Father Glenn said.
"We have a number of girls who were working in a
club, went to work in a factory, and went back to the
clubs," he said. "So, what can we do? We want to stop
trafficking, but what if they don't want to leave? I asked
the girls, "What do you want?" They said, "Father, you
can only help those who want to be helped."
Force-protection "beat cops"
Saturday night in Songtan, outside Osan Air Base,
U.S. Security Forces personnel stroll through the
crowded, brick-paved double-wide street that runs
from the main gate of the base. They are looking for
drunken airmen and preparing to break up fights.
The two airmen, wearing camouflage battle-dress
uniforms and carrying holstered 9 mm pistols and
walkie-talkies, walk side by side, unhurried, their
heads on slow swivels as they check out the scene on
the street or in one of the colorfully lit clubs.
They're looking for violations of force-protection rules,
such as vehicles parked near business entrances,
and ensuring that clubs with airmen inside have
someone out front who is preventing those with
backpacks from entering. Both rules are intended to
prevent bombings. After two Koreans with backpacks
were spotted inside the Golden Gate club, Osan
officials put the club off limits for 15 days, the airmen
say.
The airmen also look for drunk and disorderly troops.
"If we see a GI harassing a juicy girl, we stop it," said
Senior Airman Jonathan Douglas, 21. "We're like beat
cops, but with some added responsibilities for force
protection."
The two climb the stairs to the Dragon Club, where
seven off-duty troops are talking and drinking with
Russian and Filipina women while another couple
shoots pool. On the stage, a scantily clad Russian
woman twists herself alluringly around a silver dance
pole. As the airmen pass the bar ajjuma, a female
pimp, she offers her hand to Tech. Sgt. Ray Culver,
who reaches down and lightly taps it in a "low five"
handshake greeting.
"It's pretty obvious what's going on around here," an
Osan spokes-man, 1st Lt. Tom Montgomery, said
without elaboration. He accompanied a reporter and
photographer on a Security Forces patrol on the
Songtan strip. "But [military police] are doing what
they're told. And that's force protection."
"We have really good relations with the clubs," said
Senior Airman Sergio Rodriguez, 23, a 51st Security
Forces Squadron patrolman walking the beat in
Songtan. "Lots of times, when something goes wrong,
they call us first."
In five days of walking the Osan strip and visiting the
clubs, only once were uniformed South Korean police
seen near the clubs. They were never inside. The
visible law-and-order presence isn't Korean - it's
American.
U.S. efforts "undermined"
In their letter to Rumsfeld calling for an investigation of
sex slaves in Korea, the members of Congress said,
"When American soldiers acting in their official
capacity effectively condone the practice of soliciting
the services of trafficked persons, the efforts of
Congress, the State Department, and other U.S.
government agencies are severely undermined in
working to end the trafficking of human beings."
In response, Army Secretary Thomas E. White said
the military police "do not regulate, protect or support
Korean businesses or enterprises in any way." And
Soligan, the U.S. Forces Korea deputy chief of staff,
added that American military police don't patrol
businesses where criminal activity takes place. If the
South Korean police identify a place where the law is
being broken, such as "known houses of prostitution,"
the place is put off limits to American military, Soligan
said.
"Our soldiers are not doing courtesy patrols in those
institutions or those places because there aren't any
American soldiers going there," he said.
There's a flaw in that thinking, said one Korean police
official.
"Almost all South Korean police and other officials
concerned with prostitution are engaged in bribery,"
said Senior Superintendent Kim Kang-ja, director of
the Women and Juvenile Division of the Korean
National Police Agency and one of only three women
in South Korea to hold this rank. Even local police
there are members of the National Police Agency.
"It's happening in every part of Korea," said Kim,
considered the KNPA's top prostitution expert.
Many prostitutes also are afraid of the police, some of
whom are "very harsh" in enforcing the law. "Some
police violate human rights," Kim said.
Teresa Oh, a longtime social worker here with a
particular interest in the plight of the bar girls,
elaborated.
"If a Russian or Filipina girl runs away, and the club
owner calls the police, the police will go get her - and
she will be abused when she's brought back," Oh said.
The Russian women here do not appear to have a
Teresa Oh or Father Glenn or any officials fighting for
their rights.
Human-rights advocates said they heard the Russian
Embassy has a shelter similar to the Philippine
Embassy, but that it has been empty or perhaps had
only one woman staying there. Three calls to the
Russian Embassy's public affairs office were not
returned.
"Nothing surprises me with the Russian Embassy,"
said Lyudmila Erokhina of the Vladivostok Center for
Organized Crime Studies, a nongovernmental
organization put together and funded in part by the
U.S. State Department. "I have much evidence from
the victims of trafficking who apply to the Russian
embassies in Korea and China to receive help and
how officials were rude with them."
Small victories: A few get home
At Inchon Airport, Father Glenn and an assistant help
four Filipina women with their luggage and tickets.
Glenn helped the four escape from the Palace Club.
Two of the four have the same fake passports they
used to enter the country, but as long as they'll get
the women through immigration, no one cares. In
addition to their passports and alien registration
cards, Glenn has gotten them back half the money
they earned for bar fines and juicy drinks.
One of the women, "Cheryl," said she wishes she'd
never come here. "I hate clubs," she said.
Yet today is a good day - the best she's had since she
came to South Korea a year ago. "I feel happy,"
Cheryl said. "I want to go home, because I miss my
mother."
Ahead of her group in the same line for Philippine
Airlines, two other Filipinas also are leaving,
accompanied by an official from their embassy. One
worked at the Red Club in Tongduchon, the other at
the Mystic Club in Songtan. They wave, happily, then
return to tending to the details of flying home.
Father Glenn watches the four walk toward the
immigration counter. One of the young women has
only one day left on her visa, and he is concerned she
may encounter difficulties.
She doesn't. Cheryl and the other three Filipinas turn
and wave, tickets in hand, ready to board the flight
back home.
"It's satisfying," Father Glenn said. "It's another
victory. Small, yes. But the church was able to assist
people who are in need."
Lana's story doesn't have a happy ending in sight.
She doesn't want to stay, but sees no way out.
"Me finish contract," she said resignedly, meaning she
will work until her debt is paid. "Then go back home."
Asked if she'll go back to the shoe factory, she
laughed and said, "I don't know."
She knows, however, that she won't go home with the
money she hoped to earn. "I won't buy apartment,"
she said. "No money. Of course, I not buy."