New York Times Publishes Article About Prostitution that Happened Outside U.S. Military Bases in South Korea

It took a few decades, but the New York Times discovered there was prostitutes in South Korea to worked in the villes outside of U.S. military bases decades ago. It must be a slow news day for the New York Times to rehash old news like this:

In Dongducheon, South Korea, north of Seoul, women forced to work as prostitutes to American soldiers in the decades after the Korean War were confined in this building when they were discovered to have a sexually transmitted disease. (NYT)

When Cho Soon-ok was 17 in 1977, three men kidnapped and sold her to a pimp in Dongducheon, a town north of Seoul.

She was about to begin high school, but instead of pursuing her dream of becoming a ballerina, she was forced to spend the next five years under the constant watch of her pimp, going to a nearby club for sex work. Her customers: American soldiers.

The euphemism “comfort women” typically describes Korean and other Asian women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during World War II. But the sexual exploitation of another group of women continued in South Korea long after Japan’s colonial rule ended in 1945 — and it was facilitated by their own government.

There were “special comfort women units” for South Korean soldiers, and “comfort stations” for U.S.-led United Nations troops during the Korean War. In the postwar years, many of these women worked in gijichon, or “camp towns,” built around U.S. military bases.

New York Times

You can read more at the link, but the kidnapping of women to be sold to brothels back then was very rare. What mostly happened was that families sold their daughters to brothel owners to pay for tuition for their sons with the thought that the son will lift the family out of poverty after finding a good job. The “kidnapping” was just the brothel owners picking up the girl that was sold.

Overall the article is just a rehash of old information that can be read in many books about Korea. A good book to read about the club system is Seasons in the Kingdom by Tim Norris. It is also worth reading the comments at the attached link with many former GIs providing context about the women and the conditions they found themselves in back then.

By the way, I wonder if the New York Times is next going to do an article where in recent years they discover there was a “juicy girl” system outside of U.S. military bases as well?