Sex slaves
* How women are lured into South Korea's flesh trade |
| By William H. McMichael Times staff writer |
August 12, 2002 All of the women quoted in this story are real. They asked that their real names not be used because of embarrassment and fear of retaliation from bar owners and police. Many of the service members quoted also asked that their full names not be used for similar reasons - embarrassment and fear of retaliation from others in the military. SONGTAN, Republic of Korea - Lana came to South Korea for the money. Back home in the Kyrgyz Republic, where she toiled in a shoe factory for $20 a month, she longed to buy an apartment, but the $5,000 price tag seemed impossibly high. Then she saw a newspaper ad seeking women to dance and talk with U.S. servicemen in nightclubs in South Korea. The ad promised what for her was an astounding wage - $2,000 in the first six months. Lana, a bright, attractive blond, took the job. Now, she wishes she hadn't. The nine months she has worked in clubs that dot the half-mile strip running straight away from the front gate of the U.S. Air Force's Osan Air Base have left her with eyes far too world-weary for a 24-year-old. Stripped of her passport by her bar owner, in fear of corrupt South Korean police and deeply in debt to her new bosses, she was forced to sell sex to American servicemen. She became, in essence, a sex slave. In South Korea, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of Lanas, trafficked women who work in clubs, many of which cater, often exclusively, to American troops. The U.S. State Department and the United Nations have condemned the growing, worldwide trafficking of women. Millions of trafficked women are forced to work as prostitutes in countries around the world, according to the International Organization for Migration. The State Department has an entire office headed by an ambassador-level official devoted to eradicating what it calls a "scourge." But, U.S. military commanders here only grudgingly acknowledge the trafficking. "Does it exist in Korea? The State Department says so," said Air Force Maj. Gen. James Soligan, U.S. Forces Korea's deputy chief of staff. The command says South Korean sovereignty prevents the military from taking action to halt sexual slavery even as it routinely sends military police into the clubs to make sure American servicemen are safe and well-behaved. At least 13 members of Congress want the military to do more than that. They told Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in a recent letter that servicemen frequenting the bars are "helping to line the pockets of human traffickers" and called for an investigation. The Defense Department inspector general has begun an investigation. The trafficking is so open and widely known that one Air Force sergeant at Osan Air Base said any commander who didn't know about it was an "ostrich." The military's inaction rankles some human-rights advocates. They think the U.S. military, because of its widespread presence and unique role in South Korean society, can help fight the trade in women. Reydeluz D. Conferido, labor attache at the Philippine Embassy in Seoul, leads an effort to rescue Filipina bar girls. He said the United States "has to show leadership in this area, as much as it is exhibiting leadership in other areas, like the war on terrorism. "This is terrorism of the most base type." Many women in same situation Lana's story is repeated, with little variation, by scores of foreign women. Seven nights a week, Lana dances and sweet-talks airmen into buying her $10 shots of fruit juice that give the job its risque title, "juicy girl." But that's only part of the story. In the three months she worked at her first club, she only had to push drinks. But the manager paid her nothing, claiming Lana owed thousands of dollars for her travel and upkeep. She realized she'd never work herself out of debt by pushing juicy drinks alone. Escape didn't seem possible. The male manager, or ajushi, at her first club had taken her passport. Foreign women who flee their jobs without paying off their debts and without passports and valid visas typically are returned to the bar owners by corrupt cops, according to the top South Korean police expert on prostitution. Lana's bar owner moved her to another club, Lazy Days, where she began trying to work her way out of debt by hustling servicemen to pay $100 to $350 "bar fines" to take her to a nearby hotel for sex. Lana works every day, beginning at 5 p.m. and finishing up at the U.S. military curfew - 1 a.m. on weekends. If she has left the club for paid sex, she must return to work early the next afternoon. Home is a three-room apartment she shares with nine other bar girls. A video camera mounted over the front door monitors who comes and goes. She is allowed a half-hour of freedom each day. These are her experiences during one such break. Wearing a gray T-shirt with the words "Pray Hard" on it, she said wearily, "Me no be off for three months." Lana represents the changing face of prostitution in South Korea. For five decades, U.S. troops have consorted with prostitutes working near U.S. bases, and for most of that time the women were Korean. But over the past six years, the scene has changed. The Korean women who worked the clubs are largely gone. This is partly explained by an improved economy, changing tastes, the stigma associated with working in the clubs and a drastically slowed female birth rate due to widespread aborting of female fetuses by families in search of male heirs. Now, the clubs are filled with women like Lana - foreigners, most of whom agreed to come to South Korea to work as dancers and barmaids only to be coerced into prostitution. They come from Russia, Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Philippines and elsewhere. Some come with university degrees, some have little education. Most quickly gain prodigious street smarts. All are enticed by the prospect of making far more money in a short time than they ever could back in their poverty-stricken homelands. MPs watch over clubs About a mile southeast of Tongduchon, just outside the U.S. Army's Camp Hovey in the northern reaches of South Korea, six stern, broad-shouldered military police wearing black armbands over their camouflaged shirtsleeves stood on the corner outside the Olympus Club and at least a dozen others walked the nearby streets. Inside the dimly lit club, loud, slow rock music pounded the ears. The club's 18 or so women, dressed in black bikini tops and miniskirts slit up the sides, were scattered throughout the club: standing at the padded bar on the right, ordering drinks or checking out new arrivals; seductively slow dancing with off-duty troops on the dance floor; talking or making out with troops in the padded, high-backed booths; or lap dancing, grinding suggestively as they straddled seated troops. All the women appeared to be from former Soviet states. Natasha, with heavy eye makeup and dark hair, sidled up to a visitor seated in a booth. She smiled, made small talk and then asked for a $10 juice drink. When she brought it back, she sat again and asked, "You want dance?" Natasha said she lives at the club. It's not clear exactly where, although one of the several doors leading from the main room features a double deadbolt, mirroring doorways in and near other clubs frequented by troops. She comes from southern Russia and said her manager is Russian as well. Natasha said she has her passport, but it's unclear whether it contains a valid visa. "I don't like Korea," she said. Meanwhile, a military policeman entered and stared hard at the nonmilitary American visitors, as though they didn't belong here. For military customers, the lure of these bars is obvious. "It's a hardship tour. There's basically nothing you can do. You can only work out so much," said Brian, a beefy private first class stationed in the cluster of bases that stand between Seoul and the demilitarized zone. "We go out to the clubs. "There's very few clubs that don't have "VIP" rooms, where you can take the girls upstairs for sex," Brian said. While officials with U.S. Forces Korea do not condone the trafficking of women, Soligan said there is little the U.S. military can do. It is bound to respect South Korean sovereignty and limits its own law-enforcement activities to U.S. troops themselves. Soligan said, "We don't go out and ask people in restaurants and bars, 'Do you have a passport? Are you being paid below minimum wage?'" Yet some troops who frequent the bar scene said their commanders must be aware that trafficked women are selling sex in the clubs. "If they don't know what's going on, they're fools," said "M," an Air Force sergeant stationed at Osan Air Base who is friendly with a Russian woman working in one of the clubs. "They know that the women are trafficked," said Anthony, an Army sergeant and veteran of the clubs north of Seoul. "But they know they can't do anything because of the political situation. So all they can do is say, "Hey, be careful.'" Paying for sex isn't a universal pastime. Many troops stationed in South Korea don't go to bars. Many more go only for drinks, games and conversation. In metropolitan Seoul, where there's much more of everything to do outside the gates, troops say it's easier to meet women without paying for the privilege. Those who do pay often visit "Hooker Hill," barely a mile up from the main gate of Seoul's Yongsan Army Garrison, the largest U.S.-leased facility in South Korea. The steep hill, packed with small clubs with names like Polly's Kettle House and the UpTown Club, is regularly watched at night by U.S. military police patrols. The mix of women here is different from what is found in clubs outside Seoul. "Not many Russians and Filipinas here," said Lucky, a busty, heavily made-up, 40-plus Korean working in the Coyote Ugly bar at the top of the hill. "We hate the Russian girls. They started to come five years ago." Lucky wasn't sure why the Filipinas and Russians hadn't overwhelmed Hooker Hill clubs, nor was anyone else. But the red-light district is an international draw as well as a troop magnet. Most of those strolling around figured that it's a matter of supply and demand and that here, the Korean women remain popular. The troops who frequent the bars throughout South Korea say they know the women who work there are trying to get money, but may not know the pressure the trafficked women are under to generate sales and pay down their debts. Lana, for instance, earns a base salary of $350 a month. But each month, she's also expected to generate 300 tickets - chits for juice drinks and paid sex - for the club. One hundred dollars' worth of work brings 10 tickets. Some nights are slow. Lana's first club, the Phoenix, didn't force her to accept bar fines - that is, have sex with customers. But at Lazy Days, she said, "They always want, want, want, want." The ajushi pushes her to "dance, drink juice and bar fine" and yells at the women if they don't generate enough tickets. "Every day, stress," she said. Soldiers and airmen in South Korea say that only the newest or most naive troops could be unaware that many if not most of the women in these clubs are here illegally. In interviews over a three-week period with dozens of women in more than 50 clubs in Tongduchon, Uijongbu, Seoul, Songtan and Pusan, the women's illegal status seemed universal. One had only to ask. With the exception of those encountered in Seoul, every woman interviewed both inside and outside clubs said she was trafficked. "A friend called me and said, 'Want to go to Korea and earn big money?'" said "Monica," 25, a Filipina who ended up working seven months at the Palace Club in Tongduchon. Monica came from the Philippines to earn better money to help raise her 3-year-old son, who is being cared for by her parents. Before she came to South Korea, she was earning 200 pesos a day - about $4 - doing department store promotions. When Monica arrived at the gritty, smoke-filled Palace Club last winter to work as an "entertainer," she said, "I shocked, because it's my first time go there. And I cry. I saw the girl dancing, wearing a thong and bra. And I see the girls sitting in the lap of GIs." "It's like a hell," she said. If a soldier wanted to pay her bar fine, she was pressured to go along and paid a penalty of increased indebtedness if she didn't. She also did her best to stay drunk, saying she couldn't bring herself to dance and work if she were sober. Monica gave up her passport to one of the insistent promotion managers who worked for the broker who brought her to South Korea. In June, after six months of work, the club owner tried to intimidate Monica to sign a new contract, she said. She recounted the conversation: "You sign!" he said. I said, "I want to go home, I want to go back to Philippines." He said, "No, I pay lots of money for you. If you want to go, OK, you pay your penalty." I asked, "How much?" He said, "$3,000." But he knows I don't have enough money to pay that contract because I only earn a little." She signed the contract, but "after I sign, I run away." Monica said she and a friend escaped June 4 with the help of Father Glenn, a soft-spoken 39-year-old Catholic priest who works long hours to rescue and shelter Filipina club women and return them to their homes. He also arranged for the return of their passports. "For me, he's a hero," Monica said. "He don't care if he gets in trouble with the big man because he fight with the big man here in Korea. He's not afraid." Getting out isn't easy Escape is a difficult option for the women, who fear what will happen if they try and fail. While few women reported being physically harmed, some said the potential is there, which for many is a strong influence. "But control isn't always a physical thing," said Conferido, the Philippine labor attache. "See it from the gender perspective," said Conferido, who also operates a shelter for rescued Filipinas. "See what is the feeling of that woman, isolated from familial support, social support, put in a dark place where she cannot understand the language, bullied, shouted at, scolded - how intimidating that can be for the woman so she can be forced into doing things that she doesn't like, like giving up her passport, like going out to sell sex." This nonphysical intimidation "can be as threatening as a sword drawn," Conferido said. Some women go into the work knowing what awaits them. "For some, it's comfortable," Father Glenn said. "We have a number of girls who were working in a club, went to work in a factory, and went back to the clubs," he said. "So, what can we do? We want to stop trafficking, but what if they don't want to leave? I asked the girls, "What do you want?" They said, "Father, you can only help those who want to be helped." Force-protection "beat cops" Saturday night in Songtan, outside Osan Air Base, U.S. Security Forces personnel stroll through the crowded, brick-paved double-wide street that runs from the main gate of the base. They are looking for drunken airmen and preparing to break up fights. The two airmen, wearing camouflage battle-dress uniforms and carrying holstered 9 mm pistols and walkie-talkies, walk side by side, unhurried, their heads on slow swivels as they check out the scene on the street or in one of the colorfully lit clubs. They're looking for violations of force-protection rules, such as vehicles parked near business entrances, and ensuring that clubs with airmen inside have someone out front who is preventing those with backpacks from entering. Both rules are intended to prevent bombings. After two Koreans with backpacks were spotted inside the Golden Gate club, Osan officials put the club off limits for 15 days, the airmen say. The airmen also look for drunk and disorderly troops. "If we see a GI harassing a juicy girl, we stop it," said Senior Airman Jonathan Douglas, 21. "We're like beat cops, but with some added responsibilities for force protection." The two climb the stairs to the Dragon Club, where seven off-duty troops are talking and drinking with Russian and Filipina women while another couple shoots pool. On the stage, a scantily clad Russian woman twists herself alluringly around a silver dance pole. As the airmen pass the bar ajjuma, a female pimp, she offers her hand to Tech. Sgt. Ray Culver, who reaches down and lightly taps it in a "low five" handshake greeting. "It's pretty obvious what's going on around here," an Osan spokes-man, 1st Lt. Tom Montgomery, said without elaboration. He accompanied a reporter and photographer on a Security Forces patrol on the Songtan strip. "But [military police] are doing what they're told. And that's force protection." "We have really good relations with the clubs," said Senior Airman Sergio Rodriguez, 23, a 51st Security Forces Squadron patrolman walking the beat in Songtan. "Lots of times, when something goes wrong, they call us first." In five days of walking the Osan strip and visiting the clubs, only once were uniformed South Korean police seen near the clubs. They were never inside. The visible law-and-order presence isn't Korean - it's American. U.S. efforts "undermined" In their letter to Rumsfeld calling for an investigation of sex slaves in Korea, the members of Congress said, "When American soldiers acting in their official capacity effectively condone the practice of soliciting the services of trafficked persons, the efforts of Congress, the State Department, and other U.S. government agencies are severely undermined in working to end the trafficking of human beings." In response, Army Secretary Thomas E. White said the military police "do not regulate, protect or support Korean businesses or enterprises in any way." And Soligan, the U.S. Forces Korea deputy chief of staff, added that American military police don't patrol businesses where criminal activity takes place. If the South Korean police identify a place where the law is being broken, such as "known houses of prostitution," the place is put off limits to American military, Soligan said. "Our soldiers are not doing courtesy patrols in those institutions or those places because there aren't any American soldiers going there," he said. There's a flaw in that thinking, said one Korean police official. "Almost all South Korean police and other officials concerned with prostitution are engaged in bribery," said Senior Superintendent Kim Kang-ja, director of the Women and Juvenile Division of the Korean National Police Agency and one of only three women in South Korea to hold this rank. Even local police there are members of the National Police Agency. "It's happening in every part of Korea," said Kim, considered the KNPA's top prostitution expert. Many prostitutes also are afraid of the police, some of whom are "very harsh" in enforcing the law. "Some police violate human rights," Kim said. Teresa Oh, a longtime social worker here with a particular interest in the plight of the bar girls, elaborated. "If a Russian or Filipina girl runs away, and the club owner calls the police, the police will go get her - and she will be abused when she's brought back," Oh said. The Russian women here do not appear to have a Teresa Oh or Father Glenn or any officials fighting for their rights. Human-rights advocates said they heard the Russian Embassy has a shelter similar to the Philippine Embassy, but that it has been empty or perhaps had only one woman staying there. Three calls to the Russian Embassy's public affairs office were not returned. "Nothing surprises me with the Russian Embassy," said Lyudmila Erokhina of the Vladivostok Center for Organized Crime Studies, a nongovernmental organization put together and funded in part by the U.S. State Department. "I have much evidence from the victims of trafficking who apply to the Russian embassies in Korea and China to receive help and how officials were rude with them." Small victories: A few get home At Inchon Airport, Father Glenn and an assistant help four Filipina women with their luggage and tickets. Glenn helped the four escape from the Palace Club. Two of the four have the same fake passports they used to enter the country, but as long as they'll get the women through immigration, no one cares. In addition to their passports and alien registration cards, Glenn has gotten them back half the money they earned for bar fines and juicy drinks. One of the women, "Cheryl," said she wishes she'd never come here. "I hate clubs," she said. Yet today is a good day - the best she's had since she came to South Korea a year ago. "I feel happy," Cheryl said. "I want to go home, because I miss my mother." Ahead of her group in the same line for Philippine Airlines, two other Filipinas also are leaving, accompanied by an official from their embassy. One worked at the Red Club in Tongduchon, the other at the Mystic Club in Songtan. They wave, happily, then return to tending to the details of flying home. Father Glenn watches the four walk toward the immigration counter. One of the young women has only one day left on her visa, and he is concerned she may encounter difficulties. She doesn't. Cheryl and the other three Filipinas turn and wave, tickets in hand, ready to board the flight back home. "It's satisfying," Father Glenn said. "It's another victory. Small, yes. But the church was able to assist people who are in need." Lana's story doesn't have a happy ending in sight. She doesn't want to stay, but sees no way out. "Me finish contract," she said resignedly, meaning she will work until her debt is paid. "Then go back home." Asked if she'll go back to the shoe factory, she laughed and said, "I don't know." She knows, however, that she won't go home with the money she hoped to earn. "I won't buy apartment," she said. "No money. Of course, I not buy." Photographer Warren Zinn contributed to this report. William H. McMichael is the Hampton Roads bureau chief for Navy Times. |