Friday, November 18, 2011

Following in Grandma's Footsteps

My Grandmother was an activist. I didn't know it - I was too young to understand. I only knew that she spent hours typing away on her typewriter and had received responses from senators, governors, and presidents. I knew she had hundreds of clippings of her own words appearing in the newspaper.

For her, it was abortion.

For me, well, I've never been much of an activist. I believe in it, I support it, but I'd have no idea where to start. And the image I have is a little more about protests and legal battles. But here it is, my first letter to help rectify misconceptions:

Dear Lee Hyo-sik,

I'm writing in response to your November 14th article on Korean women involved in the sex industry abroad. I greatly appreciate your desire to draw attention to the issue, which is certainly a grave concern for Korea. This is definitely an increasing trend that needs to be addressed. 

I have no doubt about your facts - the numbers you quote seem fairly reasonable, even a bit conservative. However, I feel there is some information you may not be aware of. While it is true that most women in this situation have a valid working holiday visa, that does not necessarily make it true that they voluntarily chose to work in the sex industry. 

Employers, more accurately known as "traffickers", are acutely aware of the vulnerability of such young women and target them. They loan them money for their visas or offer part time jobs. The girls are then expected to pay back this money by working for them. Not all of them are directly coerced into offering sex services, but they are often told to serve in a bar or similar setting. Then, being charged for room and board as well, the girls find it impossible to pay back their debt - so they do what all the other girls do and sell their bodies. They usually don't even see how much money they're making, the "employers" collect directly from the clients. 

Here's an article from an Australian news source that describes a murder likely connected to human trafficking. If you read the article, look carefully at the story of Kathy. You'll notice, she may have had freedom to come and go, to make friends, etc. But if they hold her passport and money, you can see why there's no need for bars and chains.

You do make reference to trafficking in your article, but it appears as an afterthought to the idea that Korean women are intentionally seeking prostitution employment abroad. I would suggest, that if you do a little research, you'll discover that trafficking is the second largest criminal industry in the world and the fastest growing. You'll also discover that the Korean Criminal Law, Article 245, defines trafficking as "transferring a subject...... [by] promising money, valuables, property benefits, including advanced pay..." The UN Protocol, which Korea also signed, defines it as "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of the threat of use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability...." Notice that both documents include debt bondage or otherwise "tricking" a person into working for another person. 

The primary problem is that most people don't recognize what constitutes human trafficking. Korean women working in the sex industry in Australia are far more likely to be trafficking victims than anything else. Korean girls, motivated by the pressure to learn English, have become the number one trafficked into the US and other western countries.

Finally, if you pursue such research, you'll discover that Korea receives a great number of girls trafficked from South East Asia and Russia to fill its own brothels. Human trafficking is found in every nation, without exception.

I hope that you will discover some of these facts for yourself, then re-consider the conclusions you draw in your article. 


I think Grandma would be proud. And I, well I'm wondering what took me so long.