May 2004

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Base Intentions: The US Military Whitewashes the Exploitation and Trafficking of Women in S. Korea

Vivion Vinson is a freelance writer living in College Park, MD.

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.

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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.

The Global Fund for Women donates to women’s nonprofits around the world, including groups seeking to end trafficking, see www.globalfundforwomen.org. See also Human Rights Watch’s Campaign against Trafficking at www.hrw.org/about/projects/traffcamp/intro.html. In S. Korea, see http://usacrime.or.kr, and My Sister’s Place (Du Rae Bang), a support center for women in US military camptowns, 120 Suyu-5-Dong, Dobong-gu, Seoul 132-791, South Korea.

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