2015年12月21日月曜日

Female victims by war and human trafficking


Updated on Feb 08, 2016

There were comfort women who worked for Imperial Japanese Military during WW2, but they were camp-following prostitutes who earned high salary in the exchange of working near the battle field.  Most of them from Taiwan, Korea and Japan were victims of human trafficking. 

Who gathered comfort women in Korean Peninsula?  South Korean female scholar, Park Yu-ha (朴裕河) who is a professor of Sejong University, Seoul,  described in her book entitled “帝国の慰安婦 (Comfort women of the Empire)” that Korean parents sold their daughter for the poverty and Korean private brokers gathered girls.  She wrote: There is no evidence that the Japanese government was officially involved in, and therefore legally responsible for, coercing Korean women.



Professor Park also wrote: the women from the Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan were also treated as citizens of the empire and were expected to consider their service patriotic. They forged a “comradelike relationship” with the Japanese soldiers and sometimes fell in love with them, she wrote. She cited cases where Japanese soldiers took loving care of sick women and even returned those who did not want to become prostitutes.

Professor Park was sued for the reason of defaming the former comfort women in South Korea.  An article published on Dec 18, 2015 on The New York Times “Disputing Korean Narrative on ‘Comfort Women,’ a ProfessorDraws Fierce Backlash” described about the book by Prof. Park and its related current topics including the lawsuit.  There was a comment from a Korean to the NYT article.  Here is the copy.

Hyung-Sung Kim
"As a history student, I interviewed dozens of Koreans who were born in the 1920’s and 1930’s including my grandparents about comfort women. What they witnessed was Korean fathers selling their daughters, Korean comfort station owners deceiving Korean women. They never witnessed Japanese military coercing any Korean women.

Many of the Korean comfort women's fathers had debts and sold their daughters. The comfort station owners paid off their debts in advance, and depending on the amount of the debt, the woman's contract length was determined. Korean women were not allowed to leave until their debts were paid off. Any coercion, violence or confinement was exercised by the Korean owners. So if one wants to use the term "sex slaves" to describe former Korean comfort women, they were the sex slaves of Korean comfort station owners. They were not the sex slaves of the Japanese military. A diary written by a Korean comfort station worker discovered in 2013 confirms that fact.

I don't exonerate the Japanese military because its invasion into China and Southeast Asia did create the demand for comfort women. But the Korean narrative "The Japanese military showed up at the doors and abducted young Korean women" just didn't happen. The Korean comfort station owners capitalized on the demand, recruited Korean women, operated comfort stations and made lots of money. Japan has apologized for its part. South Korea should admit its complicity and stop demanding Japan for more apologies."
• 217 Recommend (as of 8 pm on Dec 20, 2015)



In recent Japan-bashing activities in the US such as building comfort women statue/memorial and/or describing distorted history of comfort women issue in high school history textbooks, the anti-Japan activists always say that comfort women should be memorized for protecting women’s rights. 

It would be highly hypocritical statement in order to hide the true purpose of Japan-bashing as long as only the comfort women issue is focused as an example of women’s rights issue.

Mistreatment of women during war has been happening since the history of human beings. Therefore, many nations' militaries historically have used indentured prostitutes, and it is unfair to target just Japan. When only one group is selectively targeted, it is "profiling" and, thus, wrong.  Below are examples that is hard to stare at
1, Massive rape of French women by GIs during WW2
2, Japanese comfort women for GIs
3, Total one million Korean comfort women for GIs 
4, Massive rape and massacre of Vietnamese Women by South Korean Soldiers 
5, Filipinos are forced into prostitution in South Korea_ The modern issue
6, Korean prostitutes and human trafficking in the US_ The modern issue


1, Massive rape of Frence women by the US soldiers
The Daily Mail,




2, Japanese comfort women for the US soldiers
Japanese comfort women who served for the US soldiers during the US-occupation of Japan after WW2.  Comfort stations called Recreationa l Amusement Association (RAA) was built at the request from General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ, aka., the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in many places of Japan. Because massive rape of Japanese women by GIs happened- During ONLY 10 days of the initial occupation, 1,336 cases of rape by the US soldiers occurred in only Kanagawa Prefecture. 

To protect Japanese women, brothels called Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA) for the US soldiers were immediately built in 1945 at the request from General Headquarters of the Allied Powers (GHQ, aka., the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers) in many places of Japan.


                                U.S. servicemen walking into Yasuura House, one such center

These officially sponsored brothels were closed in January 1946 when the Occupation authorities banned all "public" prostitution while declaring that it was undemocratic and violated the human rights of the women involved.  However, rape increased after the closure of the brothels, 40 cases of rape daily while the RAA was in operation, and then rose to an average of 330 a day after it was terminated.

en.wiki

Terese Svoboda, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 21-1-09, May 23, 2009.



3, Total one million Korean women served for the US soldiers since Korean War to present.  Park Chung-hee, who ruled South Korea during the 1960s and 1970s, and the father of incumbent president Park Geun-hye, encouraged the sex industry in order to generate revenue, particularly from the U.S. military.

The New York Times, January 7, 2009,



The Daily Mail, November 28, 2014,
A group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country’s former leaders of a different kind of abuse: encouraging them to have sex with the American soldiers who protected South Korea from North Korea, taking a direct hand in the sex trade from the 1960s through the 1980s.  It is a big irony that NYT favoring anti-Japan campaign published this article previously, but now accusing only Japan based on Koreans’ fabricated stories.



Military base: More than 120 women who used to work as prostitutes near a US military base in Uijeongbu City, South Korea, are seeking compensation from the Korean government. Above, Camp Stanley, east of the city



Poverty-stricken: The former prostitutes, who are aging and poor, claim their county's authorities actively facilitated their work in a bid to keep American forces happy. Above, former prostitute Cho Myung-ja, 76

Korean JoonGang Daily, Oct 30, 2008

During the Korean War, Ms. Cheon Chang-suk began working as a yangbuin, a term coined by locals for Korean bargirls and sex workers at major American camptowns, or gijichon in Korean.  Gijichon is same as brothels to provide sexual services for the US soldiers and sprang up across the Korea around 1945 when the US troops arrived.

Camptown prostitution and related businesses on the Korean Peninsula contributed to nearly 25 percent of the Korean GNP, according to Katharine Moon, a professor of political science at Wellesley College, in a 2002 study.

According to Cheon, the Korean government supported the camptown brothels, hoping the industry would boost regional economies.  In fact, recent studies here by scholars and nongovernmental agencies have suggested that the Korean government helped build and maintain the brothels after the Korean War, supporting the claims of women like Cheon.



4, Massive rape and massacre by South Korean Soldiers during Vietnam war. 
During Vietnamese war, South Korean’s soldier raped 200,000 Vietnamese women/girls.  They even massacred those women after the rape.  In present days, the Half-breed called Lai Dai Han between Korean soldiers and Vietnamese women are at least 5,000 and at most 30,000 and are discriminated in Vietnamese society.  

http://vietnamvoices.org/

Apology for the Systemic Rape of Vietnamese Women During the Vietnam War 
Change.org Petition demanding Apology for the Systemic Rape of Vietnamese Women During the Vietnam War

CNN_ War and Women: The Vietnam War (Lai Dai Han)
CNN iReport, November 14, 2014

Lai Dai Han
en.wiki
  
Binh Tai Massacre (This link includes others atrocities)
en.wiki

NewsWeek _  South Korea's Vietnam
By Ron Moreau 4/9/2000


5, Filipinos are forced into prostitution in South Korea.
Philippine Embassy has 'watchlist' of suspect bars in South Korea
STARS and STRIPES, Sep 29, 2009
Philippine Embassy officials in South Korea have established a “watch list” of bars where they believe Filipinas are forced into prostitution or otherwise exploited and are considering sharing it with the U.S. military.  Patrons at juicy bars are expected to buy expensive juice drinks for the female employees in exchange for their conversation and company, but prostitution and human trafficking have been recurring problems at many of the bars.

The Filipinas are brought to Korea on entertainer visas, ostensibly as singers, but typically the women don’t learn until they arrive that their primary job is not to sing but to generate juice revenue.  And at some bars, if the women don’t earn enough in juice sales to meet quotas, they are pressured to have sex with patrons — often U.S. servicemen — for a price.

Prior to this article, Stars and Stripes also reported that, despite the military’s expressed zero tolerance for human trafficking, prostitution continues to be affiliated with many of the juicy bars that cluster in seedy entertainment districts near U.S. military bases across South Korea.

Human trafficking for prostitution is not an issue of half century ago, but the present-day issue in South Korea. 

Stars and Stripes: September 1, 2013
The vast majority of juicy girls employed at base-area bars in South Korea are Filipino, though there is a small percentage of Koreans and those of other nationalities working as the controversial hostesses who are brought here illegally and often linked to prostitution.



6, Korean prostitutes and human trafficking in the US
South Korea is the biggest exporter of prostitute.  South Korean prostitutes occupies 23.5% of all prostitutes who were arrested in the US, which is the biggest proportion (Thai [11.7%] and Peru [10%] are the top 2 and top 3, respectively).   These prostitutes are victims of human trafficking by Korean-based prostitution industry in the United States. 
The Voices of NY  Sep 27, 2011
Massive amount of Korean women visit the US for prostitution

Funny Malaysia Dec 7, 2014
In South Korea:  110 women out of 10,000 are sex workers, which is the top 2 of the world.  Despite legal sanctions and police crackdowns, prostitution continues to flourish in South Korea, while sex workers continue to actively resist the state’s activity.

An Analysis of Korean Women in the U.S. Commercial Sex Industry
Timothy C. Lim, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
California State University, Los Angeles

Why are there so many Korean women—trafficked or smuggled, voluntary or coerced—in the American sex industry? We will return to this question, but first it is useful to take a look at the Korean-based prostitution and smuggling network in the United States.

The widespread distribution of Korean- and other Asian-run prostitution enterprises—combined with heavy reliance on unauthorized immigrant women who, after all, must be transported thousands of miles and directed through multiple borders and checkpoints, then delivered to a prearranged location—suggests a relatively organized international and domestic network(s) of smugglers and transporters.  While our research was not specifically designed to uncover the details of such networks, it is fairly evident that they play a central, even essential, role in the Korean-based prostitution industry in the United States.


International Business Times: 04/29/13
The South Korean government’s Ministry for Gender Equality estimates that about 500,000 women work in the national sex industry, though, according to the Korean Feminist Association, the actual number may exceed 1 million. If that estimate is closer to the truth, it would mean that 1 out of every 25 women in the country is selling her body for sex -- despite the passage of tough anti-sex-trafficking legislation in recent years. (For women between the ages of 15 and 29, up to one-fifth have worked in the sex industry at one time or another, according to estimates.)

Al-Jazeera reported that some 200,000 South Korean youths run away from home annually, with many of them descending into the sex trade, according to a report by Seoul’s municipal government. A separate survey suggested that half of female runaways become prostitutes.




YouTube videos to watch:

This video show you how terribly South Korean women have been treated since 1950s to present to satisfy sex demand for the U.S. military in South Korea.


"History of Comfort women for the US base in South Korea" (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
Interviewed Korean comfort women for the U.S. military.  True roots of Korean-Americans in the U.S. 


Lai Dai Han  _ What happend in the Vietnam War



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