Korean Women¡¯s Trafficking Abroad

Kim Heung-sook

Kim Heung-sook. 2006. ¡°Korean Women¡¯s Trafficking Abroad.¡± The Korea Times, July 16, 2006.


orth Korea¡¯s test-firing of missiles last week not only threw cold water on the U.S. Independence Day celebrations but blasted off fledgling media attention on efforts to help Korean women who are trafficked or smuggled into foreign countries often for involuntary sex labor.

Timothy C. Lim, associate professor from California State University¡¯s Department of Political Science, reported to an international symposium in Seoul that ¡°it wasn¡¯t difficult to conclude that a minimum 5,000 Korean women in the United States are either victims of sex trafficking or who otherwise trapped or entangled in situations of prostitution such that they are not free to leave, even if they came to the United States voluntarily.¡±

The symposium was organized by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Seoul office, sponsored by the Bom-bit Women¡¯s Foundation. Many journalists expressed keen interest in the meeting before it was convened, but failed to show up largely because of the missiles. However, the symposium, the first discussion of its kind in Korea, proceeded well.

Prof. Lim said that Korean women were lured to prostitution in the United States by Internet and advertisements. Until the 1990s, some women entered America through sham marriages to fall into such industry, but recent evidences suggested that international marriages didn¡¯t function as a significant source of foreign women¡¯s prostitution in the United States, he pointed out.

¡°Instead, most or all were lured to the United States by Internet sites, newspaper advertisements, and word of mouth. Many of these ads made extraordinary promises: $5,000 a month to work in Guam, read one advertisement. $7,200 monthly to work in a Los Angeles salon, with guaranteed entrance to a ¡®state government vocational school,¡¯ read another.

¡°The naivete of women who are fooled by outlandish promises in Internet or newspaper ads may be hard to swallow, and more in-depth examination may prove that a little skepticism is, in fact, a good thing¡¦ most of the Korean women who respond to these advertisements have limited education: junior high school and some high school,¡± he said. Quoting U.S. Department of State¡¯s last year report on trafficking in persons, he said Canada, particularly British Columbia, was used as a hub for east Asian traffickers along with Mexico.

Sealing Cheng, Henry Luce assistant professor, Wellesley College Department of Women¡¯s Studies, told the symposium that there was a need to understand the factors that generated people who were ready to take the risk of migrating to a foreign country for opportunities that might be dangerous.

¡°If most Korean victims of trafficking are women, then we may need to look at the opportunities for women in Korea and their limitations that encourage unsafe migration overseas. It may not so much be innocence, as much as ambition and desires to improve one¡¯s life, that people embrace the opportunities that traffickers have to offer,¡± she said.

Chung Kyung-ja, policy officer at an NGO for women immigrants in New South Wales, Australia, said that most women trafficked in Australia were from Southeast Asia and China, but Korean women seemed to be increasing probably because Australian police were conducting tight surveillance on trafficking of women from Southeast Asia.

Some women arrive in Australia, being totally unaware of the fact that they will do prostitution, while others come, knowing that they will prostitute, but deceived about the conditions of prostitution. Traffickers offer student¡¯s visas or tourist¡¯ visas to foreign women to enter Australia. Quoting the Project Respect, an NGO whose focus is on women trafficked to Australia for prostitution, Dr. Chung estimated that there are 1,000 women under contract at any given time in the country.

Keiko Tamai, Asia Foundation¡¯s Japan Program Director, said that Japan was faced with a grave challenge of awakening the public to trafficking in persons, because public participation and support was a must for the success of anti-trafficking campaigns. She said an increased public awareness should be followed by a more direct communication between law-enforcement authorities and NGOs, a greater NGO access to victims without jeopardizing both sides, and continuous support for victims even after they return to their home countries.

Seol Dong-Hoon, professor of sociology, Chonbuk National University in Chonju, North Cholla Province, said that Korea¡¯s enforcing of two prostitution-related laws in 2004 had reduced sex industry but additional efforts were needed to prevent a ¡°balloon effect.¡± ¡°The government argues that sex trade has decreased and I, too, believe so, but some say that the volume remains the same. They say that prostitution was usually done in brothels clustered in certain districts, but is now done in scattered areas. It¡¯s like a balloon that changes shape when pressed.¡± he said, agreeing that Korean women¡¯s prostitution is increasing overseas.

Revealing that he and other Korean and foreign researchers would make year-long fact-finding endeavor concerning trafficking of Korean women in foreign countries, he called for the cooperation of the international community to trace the causes of trafficking and to work out measures to stop it. Kim Heung-sook. The writer is a freelancer living in Seoul.