The ghosts of the colonial and development past are starting to get in the way of where Korea wants to go. The material prosperity of today – the product of so-called "compressed development" – is paid for by corners cut, rights denied, and people oppressed. The labor and sexual exploitation of women is not something that simply goes away – I believe, like anything in the universe, there are always effects, consequences, repercussions.
You can forget about the past, but the past don't forget about you.
Or to complexify that a bit – you can forget about moral and ethical corners cut, but they seep back into the material and psychic fabric of our daily lives, culture...our very existence.
Sticker for a front for informal prostitution.
Nowhere is this more true than with the Korean sex industry – an issue that's no stranger to this blog. And now, since it is leaking over into other societies in a direct and palpable way, it is starting to have its repercussions felt. And as South Koreans wonder why it is so hard for single women without a career to receive visa to even visit the US as a tourist, things are becoming more apparent.
I, personally, do not believe that South Korea should receive an open visa status with the United States so long as it is a tool of forced sex trafficking.
Domestically, the industry – in my estimation, through my research, and through observation – is largely voluntary. Say what you will about financial incentives, but in the end, Korean women are not being kidnapped, deceived, or otherwise forced into prostitution.
Internationally, however, the picture looks remarkably different. Look and listen at this photo essay/podcast and piece done by the SFGate. Now that South Korea's social problem has become squarely one that the US has to deal with – and in a much more vicious form than its domestic version takes – finally, American reporters are taking this up as an issue. A few of them came all the way to Korea to do photo essays that produced pictures such as the one below.
Picture from the SFGate photoessay (not mine).
I have a million pictures like this, but I could not publish them, for ethical reasons that are specific to Korean society. Now that the cat's out of the bag – and already on the Internet – the onus of responsibility's not on me. And maybe I was being just a bit too careful, anyway.
Finally, parts of American society are going to place pressure on Korean society to actually do something about this issue, besides make useless crackdowns that only hurt the "victims" of the overall low value that Korean society places on women in general.
"Too old" is scribbled across the top of this resume.
Finally, the American press may actually start talking about what I and many others have been talking about for years, while many Koreans just assumed we were "bashing" Korea and "trying to make it look bad."
Well, honestly, I was trying to make Korea "look bad" – but instead of killing the messenger, I was hoping that people might be motivated to want things to change, instead of shuffling them under the rug and looking the other way.
My first blog post on this issue, which was actually the first post I ever did here. (October 2004)
The uncut Korea Herald article. (June 2005)
A followup post on the subject (April 2006)
The "social problems" chapter of my cancelled photo book. (May 2006)
Prostitution is on of South Korea's biggest service industries and its most embarrassing export, in terms of prostitution in its most pernicious and vile form – forced sex trafficking. And given the historical and symbolic "scar" that the comfort woman issue seems to represent for Korea, what meaning does it have when the very same system of sex trafficking is being imposed on the country's own women by its own countrymen and then exported to another country?
Shouldn't this anger South Korean society, and not just because foreigners have shined a flashlight where Koreans know not to look?
A prostitute ignores a drunk man outside her brothel in the Yongsan red light district.
I think it should. And denying South Korea open visa status – and openly stating the reason – would be a good start. I don't say this "just to make a point" – but if that visa is a staple part of supporting a importing prostitutes – largely without their consent, it seems – then the United States has no part in allowing this South Korea such a status, no matter how many people are inconvenienced for their vacation trips.
I've been going on about this since the 1990's. About time people are catching on.
P.S. The writer who accused me of "writing a guide" for sex work for my Korea Herald piece, I guess you would have the same vitriolic words for the female reporter and photographer from the SFGate? Listen to the podcast they have and the story they produced – which basically covers the same ground, with the same level of detail as I did. Yet, you felt my article was "inappropriate?"
Or does your anger only apply for male journalists and photographers? Knee-jerk Korean Americans on the left are apparently just as adept at killing the messenger as Korean nationalists going on about people besmirching the country's "honor." Both, equally idiotic.
I do good work on this subject. Now, it is being followed up by professional journalists who can reach a much wider audience than I ever would. I'm glad they are, because I'm not the type of person who looks social wrong in the eye and frets and handwrings about whether it's "appropriate" to bring the truth to light.