DONGDUCHEON, South Korea — When Cho Quickly-ok was 17 in 1977, three males kidnapped and offered her to a pimp in Dongducheon, a city north of Seoul.
She was about to start highschool, however as an alternative of pursuing her dream of changing into a ballerina, she was pressured to spend the subsequent 5 years beneath the fixed watch of her pimp, going to a close-by membership for intercourse work. Her clients: American troopers.
The euphemism “consolation girls” sometimes describes Korean and different Asian girls pressured into sexual slavery by the Japanese throughout World Battle II. However the sexual exploitation of one other group of ladies continued in South Korea lengthy after Japan’s colonial rule led to 1945 — and it was facilitated by their very own authorities.
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There have been “particular consolation girls items” for South Korean troopers, and “consolation stations” for U.S.-led United Nations troops throughout the Korean Battle. Within the postwar years, many of those girls labored in gijichon, or “camp cities,” constructed round U.S. army bases.
In September, 100 such girls received a landmark victory when the South Korean Supreme Courtroom ordered compensation for the sexual trauma they endured. It discovered the federal government responsible of “justifying and inspiring” prostitution in camp cities to assist South Korea keep its army alliance with the USA and earn U.S. {dollars}.
It additionally blamed the federal government for the “systematic and violent” method it detained the ladies and compelled them to obtain therapy for sexually transmitted ailments.
In interviews with The New York Occasions, six former South Korean camp city girls described how their authorities used them for political and financial acquire earlier than abandoning them. Inspired by the courtroom rulings — which relied on not too long ago unsealed official paperwork — the victims now purpose to take their case to the USA.
“The Individuals have to know what a few of their troopers did to us,” stated Park Geun-ae, who was offered to a pimp in 1975, when she was 16, and stated she endured extreme beatings and different abuse from troopers. “Our nation held fingers with the U.S. in an alliance and we knew that its troopers had been right here to assist us, however that didn’t imply that they may do no matter they needed to us, did it?”
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‘Entrance-line Warriors in Profitable {Dollars}’
South Korea’s historical past of sexual exploitation isn’t all the time brazenly mentioned. When a sociologist, Kim Gwi-ok, started reporting on wartime consolation girls for the South Korean army within the early 2000s, citing paperwork from the South Korean military, the federal government had the paperwork sealed.
“They feared that Japan’s proper wing would use it to assist whitewash its personal consolation girls historical past,” stated Kim, referring to historic feuds between Seoul and Tokyo over sexual slavery.
Within the aftermath of the Korean Battle, South Korea trailed the North in army and financial energy. U.S. troops stayed within the South beneath the U.N. flag to protect towards the North, however South Korea struggled to maintain U.S. boots on the bottom.
In 1961, Gyeonggi province, the populous space surrounding Seoul, thought-about it “pressing to arrange mass services for consolation girls to offer consolation for U.N. troops or increase their morale,” in line with paperwork submitted to the courtroom as proof. The native authorities gave permits to personal golf equipment to recruit such girls to “save funds and earn overseas forex.” It estimated the variety of consolation girls in its jurisdiction at 10,000 and rising, catering to 50,000 U.S. troops.
When President Richard Nixon introduced plans in 1969 to cut back the variety of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, the federal government’s effort took on extra urgency. The next yr, the federal government reported to parliament that South Korea was incomes $160 million yearly by enterprise ensuing from the U.S. army presence, together with the intercourse commerce. (The nation’s whole exports on the time had been $835 million.)
A few of the girls gravitated to camp cities to discover a residing. Others, like Cho, had been kidnapped, or lured with the promise of labor. A intercourse act sometimes value between $5 and $10 — cash the pimps confiscated. Though the {dollars} didn’t go on to the federal government, they entered the economic system, which was starved for arduous forex.
A South Korean newspaper on the time known as such girls an “unlawful, cancer-like, needed evil.” However “these consolation girls are additionally front-line warriors in profitable {dollars},” it stated.
Typically, newcomers had been drugged by their pimps to deal with the disgrace.
Numbers and Title Tags
Society principally dismissed such girls as yanggalbo, or “whores for the West,” a part of the worth of sustaining the U.S. army presence within the nation after the warfare.
“The officers who known as us patriots sneered behind our again, calling us ‘dollar-earning machines,’” Park stated.
Prostitution was and stays unlawful in South Korea, however enforcement has been selective and assorted in harshness over time. Camp cities had been created partially to restrict the ladies so that they might be extra simply monitored, and to forestall prostitution and intercourse crimes involving U.S. troopers from spreading to the remainder of society. Black markets thrived there as South Koreans clamored for items smuggled out of U.S. army post-exchange operations, in addition to overseas forex.
In 1973, when U.S. army and South Korean officers met to debate points in camp cities, a U.S. Military officer stated that the Military coverage on prostitution was “whole suppression,” however “this isn’t being achieved in Korea,” in line with declassified U.S. army paperwork.
As an alternative, the U.S. army centered on defending troops from contracting venereal illness.
The ladies described how they had been gathered for month-to-month courses the place South Korean officers praised them as “dollar-earning patriots” whereas U.S. officers urged them to keep away from sexually transmitted ailments. The ladies needed to be examined twice per week; these testing optimistic had been detained for medical therapy.
Below guidelines U.S. army and South Korean officers labored out, camp city girls needed to carry registration and VD check playing cards and to put on numbered badges or identify tags, in line with unsealed paperwork and former consolation girls.
The U.S. army performed routine inspections on the camp city golf equipment, protecting photograph recordsdata of the ladies at base clinics to assist contaminated troopers establish contacts. The detained included not solely girls discovered to be contaminated, but additionally these recognized as contacts or these missing a sound check card throughout random inspections.
They had been held in services with barred home windows and closely dosed with penicillin. The ladies interviewed by the Occasions all remembered these locations with dread, recalling colleagues who collapsed or died from penicillin shock.
Disgrace, Silence and Even Demise
South Korea has by no means come to phrases with the story of its camp city girls, partially due to the steadfast alliance between Seoul and Washington. The topic stays way more taboo than discussions of the ladies pressured into sexual slavery by Japan.
“We had been similar to consolation girls for the Japanese army,” Cho stated. “They needed to take Japanese troopers and we American GIs.”
Not one of the authorities paperwork unsealed in recent times revealed any proof to recommend that South Korea was straight concerned in recruiting the ladies for U.S. troops, in contrast to many ladies pressured into sexual slavery beneath Japanese occupation.
However in contrast to the victims of the Japanese army — honored as symbols of Korea’s struggling beneath colonial rule — these girls say they’ve needed to stay in disgrace and silence.
South Koreans started to pay extra consideration to the problem of sexual exploitation in camp cities after a girl named Yun Geum-i was brutally sexually assaulted and viciously murdered by a U.S. soldier in 1992.
Between 1960 and 2004, U.S. troopers had been discovered responsible of killing 11 intercourse staff in South Korea, in line with an inventory compiled by the advocacy group Saewoomtuh.
The U.S. army declined to touch upon the Supreme Courtroom ruling or the ladies’s claims. “We don’t condone any kind of habits that violates South Korean legal guidelines, guidelines or directives and have carried out good order and self-discipline measures,” its spokesperson, Col. Isaac Taylor, stated by electronic mail.
A Legacy of Ache
Camp cities light with South Korea’s fast financial growth.
Although former camp city girls need to convey their case to the USA, their authorized technique there may be unclear, as is what recourse they might discover.
In a psychiatric report Park submitted to the South Korean courtroom in 2021 as proof, she in contrast her life with “strolling continually on skinny ice” out of worry that others would possibly study her previous. Her arms and thighs present scars from self-inflicted wounds.
Below the South Korean courtroom ruling, Park and others had been every paid between $2,270 and $5,300, which did little to ease their monetary misery.
Choi Gwi-ja, 77, fought again tears when she described a number of abortions she and different girls endured due to the bias towards biracial kids in South Korea. Her voice quavered recalling girls who killed themselves after troopers who had taken them as common-law wives subsequently deserted them and their kids.
She recalled how officers as soon as urged the ladies, lots of them illiterate like her, to earn {dollars}, promising them free flats of their previous age if they’d promote their our bodies for cash on the camp cities. “It was all a fraud,” she stated.
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