Report on Trafficked Foreign women into Sex Industries in Korea

TNI

July 2005

Report on Trafficked Foreign women into Sex Industries in Korea
Eun-Joo, Kim

1. Introduction

Foreign workers who have immigrated since the 1990's have occupied many of the 3D industries in Korea. Women worked on worse conditions and were paid far smaller wages than men. When the Korean economy was under the IMF system, these women workers were ranked as 'zero for dismissal' and driven out of work sites; accordingly, they were pushed into sex industries. The immigrant women workers increased and there were more foreign women driven into the sex industries.

This has already been a serious woman's problem not only in Korea but also in the whole Northeast Asia. At present, foreign women are driven into sex industries by means of human traffic. This human [woman] trafficking is committed by criminal organizations in several countries in Northeast Asia. In most entertainment club in Korea, the sex industry is regarded as one of businesses. Most of these women are Filipinos or Russians but increasingly; there are also Sri Lankans, Nepalese, Indonesians, and others.

2. Field reality (This is excerpted from the interviews in August 1999)

Most foreign women are driven into sex industry through a process. First, they are informed of overseas employment from advertisements of local promotion companies or agencies. After audition or photo test with these companies or agencies, they then make a contract with the agent or manager. The contract includes that the contractor should pay the manger $300 a month on condition that the manager should bear the passport application cost, physical examination cost, recruitment charge, agency commission, air fare, airport tax, travel tax, and so on and take all charge if the contractor run away. This amount ($300) includes problem-solving charges during their stay in Korea. Recently, it has become common to employ locals for recruitment and management of the immigration procedures through an agency in Korea instead of sending one from Korea because the women immigration brings social problems. Besides, it is easily assumed that foreign criminal organisations are implicated in the process.

Most of these women enter Korea with an entertainer visa even if they are not professional entertainers in their home countries. In Korea, only singers and dancers with entertainer visa are permitted to work in entertainment clubs.

Since the Philippines' political power has changed, people hardly get the emigration permit, so most of these women entered Korea illegally via Hong Kong or Bangkok. A woman who entered Korea in February 1999, said that she came via Bangkok because of the visa problem, and that it is common to migrate this way from the Philippines. In this case, she was not paid three months wages because her indirect immigration route cost much more than a direct route that included extra air fare, board and lodging, arrangement commission, visa and passport fee, etc. These women find that the real conditions in Korea were not as what they thought of in their country. But they cannot help working in that conditions because of the $2000 penalty, which is an enormous amount compared with their monthly wage of $250-300. Moreover, it is impossible for non-Koreans to protest against Korean employers regarding the contract.

After all entry processes, these women are handed over to their Korean employers with their passports; accordingly, they are cut off from any escape way and are forced to provide sex service in a limited time and room.

1) Kinds of work

Foreign women are mostly engaged in juice sales, entertainment, or prostitution. In case of juice sale, they should fulfill the allocated amount of juice; if not, they should pay the penalty. There are differences in the allocated amount or penalty according to place. In this case, they are paid only 10,000 won for a meal instead of sale income of the day. One of these women said that she works longer time in weekends though the usual work time is from 7:00 to 12:30 in the evening. At this time, she gets yellow tickets for the juice price, which is counted at 3,000 won per ticket and will be paid to her at the end of the month.

In the case of entertainment, though these women are contracted only as singers or dancers, most employers force them to sex service such as dancing in sexy dress, strip-show, or prostitution. The most serious problem to these women is the unexpected sex service. R, who had worked at a hamburger shop in the Philippines, said that she had known to work as a waitress but knew she should dance in a sexy dress after entering Korea.

R entered Korea in the spring of 1999, and she should dance in the 'sexy cloth' with four Philippine women and seven Korean women as soon as they arrived at the club. R was very tired and anxious but she should do that upon arrival. According to R, the club owner said that new employees should dance naked, and if they did, he would raise their wages $100 more. At first, R refused that; however, she could not help doing that in the end because the other four Philippine women agreed to do so to earn more money. In that club, two Korean men trained them to dance. These women should practise the dance before work time. The Philippine women refused to do the 'banana show' - R called it 'dirty'- so only the Korean women did that. Together with the four Philippine women, R run away from that club and attempted to get a factory job. They stayed in a Philippine man's house, the husband of one of these women. It was impossible to get a factory job because of the Korean's hard attitude on amnesty. They then worked in another club and requested Mr. Kim and their manager Mr. Y to move them to a new club. However, the man who trained them to dance recognized them and called the first club owner. They were then seized and sent to back to that club.

2) Penalty system

The penalty system is the most serious shackle for these women. For example, they should pay $20 penalty for five minutes lateness when the leave-time was shortened from four and a half hours to four hours. There was also a $60 penalty on an absence without notice. They are prohibited from going out. If they do go out, especially with an American, they should pay $100 or 230000 won on penalty and must return by 12:00 a.m. They also cannot marry for three months after contracting. If they get married and cancelled the contract, the penalty can be up to $3500-5000. Besides, if they were poor at work, they should pay from 200,000 won (180USD) to 300000 won (260USD), which is equivalent to their wage for ten days, considering that they sold ten glasses of 3000-won juice. So, even if they are sick, they cannot rest even for a day.

3. Conclusion

With the concept of a global village, global sex industry also becomes one of tourism. The basic economics principle - the most advantage on the least investment - drives more foreign women of relatively low wages into sex industries worldwide. However, these prosperous sex industries allot their enormous profits to employers and brokers while women employees are defencelessly put to hard work, low wage, sexual violence, prostitution, drugs, and venereal disease such as AIDS. Most of these women go abroad with the hope to escape their poverty through overseas employment, but employers and brokers take the profits from their labour.

There is a rapid increase of foreign women migrating and many confront problems such as bad work condition, extortion, and attempt to escape. There are no systems to protect and support them. It is urgent to supply them with information and materials lest they will be disadvantaged or their personal rights will be trampled upon. Support such as medical service, policy study against payment delay, illegal dismissal, etc, and to run rest areas, is necessary. However, it is very difficult for a group to take charge of all these. It is necessary to build an organic system among groups with the same purpose, and to explore and reinforce the support methods such as medical and legal service, and new projects together.

[Annex 1]

A Statement

I am ***. I worked at P CLUB in SONGTAN City from 1996 to 1997. My boss sent me back to the Philippines with the reason that I did not do what my boss wants me to do.

He was always angry with me but I am not stupid to do everything he wanted though. It was not favourable to me. He did not accept any reasonable situation. Sometimes we had good business but sometimes it was very slow. But he does not understand that. He just wants money, good business without knowing how much we tried to have it.

He always thinks that we were doing our own monkey business with his consent. If one of us was not at home, even at daytime when a person went downtown to buy something for herself, he got angry and we must pay a penalty. He was very strict. We were like prisoners - no freedom to explain our side. But the worst was that he forced us to go out with the customers. When somebody needed us, I always refused to and that he was angry with me and maybe that was the reason why he sent me back in Philippines with an unfinished contract. He was not really contented even though we were making good business more than he wanted to take.

It was stated in our contract that we have free food but we always buy our own food and they were always giving us a hard time during payday.

Acknowledgment of payment receipt

***, who has worked for the P Club as an entertainer from October 1996 to April 1997, acknowledges the receipt of the total amount of 670,000 Won including 300,000 Won for the salary of April 1997, fine 100,000 Won under the charge of non-carrying the alien card, and 300,000 Won for the return ticket from the club owner Mr. L.

Date:

Being paid by:
Name: (authorized signature)
ID no.:
Contact no.:

Received by:
Name: (authorized signature)