Hoorah!!

[PizzaSnake]

Ain't 'Murica grand?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/worl ... avery.html

"DONGDUCHEON, South Korea — When Cho Soon-ok was 17 in 1977, three men kidnapped and sold her to a pimp in Dongducheon, a town north of Seoul.

She was about to begin high school, but instead of pursuing her dream of becoming a ballerina, she was forced to spend the next five years under the constant watch of her pimp, going to a nearby club for sex work. Her customers: American soldiers.

The euphemism “comfort women” typically describes Korean and other Asian women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during World War II. But the sexual exploitation of another group of women continued in South Korea long after Japan’s colonial rule ended in 1945 — and it was facilitated by their own government.

There were “special comfort women units” for South Korean soldiers, and “comfort stations” for American-led U.N. troops during the Korean War. In the postwar years, many of these women worked in gijichon, or “camp towns,” built around American military bases."

Yeah, I bet the South Koreans sure "thanked them for their service"...

[DMac]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

[JoeMauer89]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

DMac, it's always blame on 'Muricans with said poster. Don't even bother. Some people will swim against the current just to say they did so.

Joe

[youthathletics]

Prescient.

Just returned from SK, it cuts far far deeper. Many women, travel from all over the globe to SK. Surprisingly, many bars, tattoo, massage, window businesses are owned and run by Armenian, Russian, and ME owners as business fronts. It’s an eerie place with bad vibes just to stop in for a quick beer or drink, and the SK govt seems to let it ride.

Met a couple people that live there and painted a very clear picture of how many Japanese and Vietnam woman travel there every 6 months to make money b/c they can’t get work in their home towns/country b/c of the male dominant hierarchy in their country and how their profession would get them disowned if found out. So they travel to SK, and claim they work in finer establishments to gain income.

[PizzaSnake]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

That was irony...

Really? Who, precisely, was fcuking these victimized women and, among other things, giving them venereal diseases?

For your delectation:

A Brutal Sex Trade Built for American Soldiers
It’s a long-buried part of South Korean history: women compelled by force, trickery or desperation into prostitution, with the complicity of their own leaders.

Give this article
489
An abandoned concrete building surrounded by weeds against a backdrop of mountains.
In Dongducheon, South Korea, north of Seoul, women forced to work as prostitutes to American soldiers in the decades after the Korean War were confined in this building when they were discovered to have a sexually transmitted disease.

By Choe Sang-HunPhotographs by Jean Chung
Choe Sang-Hun examined unsealed government documents and interviewed six women who worked in camp towns around American military bases in South Korea for this article.

May 2, 2023
Leer en español
DONGDUCHEON, South Korea — When Cho Soon-ok was 17 in 1977, three men kidnapped and sold her to a pimp in Dongducheon, a town north of Seoul.

She was about to begin high school, but instead of pursuing her dream of becoming a ballerina, she was forced to spend the next five years under the constant watch of her pimp, going to a nearby club for sex work. Her customers: American soldiers.

The euphemism “comfort women” typically describes Korean and other Asian women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during World War II. But the sexual exploitation of another group of women continued in South Korea long after Japan’s colonial rule ended in 1945 — and it was facilitated by their own government.

There were “special comfort women units” for South Korean soldiers, and “comfort stations” for American-led U.N. troops during the Korean War. In the postwar years, many of these women worked in gijichon, or “camp towns,” built around American military bases.

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Last September, 100 such women won a landmark victory when the South Korean Supreme Court ordered compensation for the sexual trauma they endured. It found the government guilty of “justifying and encouraging” prostitution in camp towns to help South Korea maintain its military alliance with the United States and earn American dollars.

Image
A woman with a sad expression stands in a dilapidated building with graffiti and debris in the background.
Cho Soon-ok, a former comfort woman for the G.I.s, inside the former detention center in Dongducheon.

Image
A woman sitting against a blurry white background wipes her eyes.
Park Geun-ae, another former comfort woman, weeps as she recalls her experiences.

It also blamed the government for the “systematic and violent” way it detained the women and forced them to receive treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

In interviews with The New York Times, six former South Korean camp town women described how their government used them for political and economic gain before abandoning them. Encouraged by the court rulings — which relied on recently unsealed official documents — the victims now aim to take their case to the United States.

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“The Americans need to know what some of their soldiers did to us,” said Park Geun-ae, who was sold to a pimp in 1975, when she was 16, and said she endured severe beatings and other abuse from G.I.s. “Our country held hands with the U.S. in an alliance and we knew that its soldiers were here to help us, but that didn’t mean that they could do whatever they wanted to us, did it?”

More on South Korea
Sexually Exploited: Many South Korean women were forced to work as prostitutes to American soldiers during the Korean War. It is a long-buried part of history that happened with the complicity of the local government.
Improving Relations: The long-fraught relationship between South Korea and Japan appears to be entering a phase of détente. But can the fragile truce between the two countries last?
Punishment for Bullies: Bullying accusations have led to the takedowns of public figures in South Korea. Some critics say the punishments are disproportionate to the offenses.
K-Pop Fans: A bidding war for a K-pop label that could have global ramifications for the genre has left Korean listeners questioning their relevance.
‘Frontline Warriors in Winning Dollars’
South Korea’s history of sexual exploitation is not always openly discussed. When a sociologist, Kim Gwi-ok, began reporting on wartime comfort women for the South Korean military in the early 2000s, citing documents from the South Korean Army, the government had the documents sealed.

“They feared that Japan’s right wing would use it to help whitewash its own comfort women history,” said Ms. Kim, referring to historical feuds between Seoul and Tokyo over sexual slavery.

In the aftermath of the Korean War, South Korea trailed the North in military and economic power. American troops stayed in the South under the U.N. flag to guard against the North, but South Korea struggled to keep U.S. boots on the ground.


In 1961, Gyeonggi Province, the populous area surrounding Seoul, considered it “urgent to prepare mass facilities for comfort women to provide comfort for U.N. troops or boost their morale,” according to documents submitted to the court as evidence. The local government gave permits to private clubs to recruit such women to “save budget and earn foreign currency.” It estimated the number of comfort women in its jurisdiction at 10,000 and growing, catering to 50,000 American troops.

Image
A dilapidated and abandoned room with grates on the windows and debris on the floor.
A bedroom where women who tested positive for sexually transmitted diseases were kept in the former detention center in Dongducheon.

Image
A man walks down an empty street past shuttered businesses. Their signs say things like “club” and “pool table” and “karaoke.”
A street in “Dongducheon Special Tourist Zone for Foreigners.” Once, the area was filled with clubs and brothels catering to U.S. soldiers.

When President Richard M. Nixon announced plans in 1969 to reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, the government’s effort took on more urgency. The following year, the government reported to Parliament that South Korea was earning $160 million annually through business resulting from the U.S. military presence, including the sex trade. (The country’s total exports at the time were $835 million.)

Some of the women gravitated to camp towns to find a living. Others, like Ms. Cho, were abducted, or lured with the promise of work. A sex act typically cost between $5 and $10 — money the pimps confiscated. Although the dollars didn’t go directly to the government, they entered the economy, which was starved for hard currency.

A South Korean newspaper at the time called such women an “illegal, cancer-like, necessary evil.” But “these comfort women are also frontline warriors in winning dollars,” it said.

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Often, newcomers were drugged by their pimps to cope with the shame.

Numbers and Name Tags
Society mostly dismissed such women as yanggalbo, or “whores for the West,” part of the price of maintaining the U.S. military presence in the country after the war.

“The officials who called us patriots sneered behind our back, calling us ‘dollar-earning machines,’” Ms. Park said.

Prostitution was and remains illegal in South Korea, but enforcement has been selective and varied in harshness over time. Camp towns were created in part to confine the women so they could be more easily monitored, and to prevent prostitution and sex crimes involving American G.I.s from spreading to the rest of society. Black markets thrived there as South Koreans clamored for goods smuggled out of U.S. military post-exchange operations, as well as foreign currency.

In 1973, when U.S. military and South Korean officials met to discuss issues in camp towns, a U.S. Army officer said that the Army policy on prostitution was “total suppression,” but “this is not being done in Korea,” according to declassified U.S. military documents.

Instead, the U.S. military focused on protecting troops from contracting venereal disease.

Image
An old document in Korean.
In this 1971 municipal ordinance, Euijeongbu City, north of Seoul, ordered the establishment of a clinic to confine infected women. It says the clinic must seek police help if the women refused to be detained for treatment.Credit...South Korean government archives

Image
An old document in Korean.
This 1969 ordinance from the health ministry calls for “frequent” and “coercive diagnosis and treatment” to fight sexually transmitted disease among prostitutes catering to American troops.Credit...South Korean government archives

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Image
A joint meeting of U.S. military and South Korean officials in 1973 discussed various measures to control venereal disease in communities adjacent to military bases.
A joint meeting of U.S. military and South Korean officials in 1973 discussed various measures to control venereal disease in communities adjacent to military bases.Credit...South Korean government archives

Image
Health officials in Gyeonggi Province in 1961 discuss allowing clubs to hire “comfort women” to “earn foreign currency,” as well as to “enhance the morale” of U.S. troops and “improve their perceptions of South Korea.”
Health officials in Gyeonggi Province in 1961 discuss allowing clubs to hire “comfort women” to “earn foreign currency,” as well as to “enhance the morale” of U.S. troops and “improve their perceptions of South Korea.”Credit...South Korean government archives

The women described how they were gathered for monthly classes where South Korean officials praised them as “dollar-earning patriots” while U.S. officers urged them to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. The women had to be tested twice a week; those testing positive were detained for medical treatment.

Under rules U.S. military and South Korean officials worked out, camp town women had to carry registration and V.D. test cards and to wear numbered badges or name tags, according to unsealed documents and former comfort women.

The U.S. military conducted routine inspections at the camp town clubs, keeping photo files of the women at base clinics to help infected soldiers identify contacts. The detained included not only women found to be infected, but also those identified as contacts or those lacking a valid test card during random inspections.

They were held in facilities with barred windows and heavily dosed with penicillin. The women interviewed by The Times all remembered these places with dread, recalling colleagues who collapsed or died from penicillin shock.

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Shame, Silence and Even Death
South Korea has never come to terms with the story of its camp town women, in part because of the steadfast alliance between Seoul and Washington. The subject remains far more taboo than discussions of the women forced into sexual slavery by Japan.

“We were just like comfort women for the Japanese military,” Ms. Cho said. “They had to take Japanese soldiers and we American G.I.s.”

None of the government documents unsealed in recent years revealed any evidence to suggest that South Korea was directly involved in recruiting the women for American troops, unlike many women forced into sexual slavery under Japanese occupation.

But unlike the victims of the Japanese military — honored as symbols of Korea’s suffering under colonial rule — these women say they have had to live in shame and silence.

Image
A hillside with dead leaves and white signs on sticks stuck into the ground.
This spot in Dongducheon holds graves of people who died in the town and whose bodies were not claimed by relatives, and is the area where the women interviewed by The Times for this article said some of their fellow prostitutes ended up. The notices were put up by the municipal government.

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Image
A wall topped with barbed wire and a sign to keep out. In the foreground are asphalt and orange traffic cones.
A barbed-wire wall around Camp Casey, in Dongducheon.

South Koreans began to pay more attention to the issue of sexual exploitation in camp towns after a woman named Yun Geum-i was brutally sexually assaulted and viciously murdered by an American soldier in 1992.

Between 1960 and 2004, American soldiers were found guilty of killing 11 sex workers in South Korea, according to a list compiled by the advocacy group Saewoomtuh.

The U.S. military declined to comment on the Supreme Court ruling or the women’s claims. “We do not condone any type of behavior that violates South Korean laws, rules or directives and have implemented good order and discipline measures,” its spokesman, Col. Isaac Taylor, said by email.

A Legacy of Pain
Camp towns faded with South Korea’s rapid economic development.

Though former camp town women want to bring their case to the United States, their legal strategy there is unclear, as is what recourse they may find.

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In a psychiatric report that Ms. Park submitted to the South Korean court in 2021 as evidence, she compared her life with “walking constantly on thin ice” out of fear that others might learn about her past. Her arms and thighs show scars from self-inflicted wounds.

Image
A hand and wrist marked with scars.
Park Geun-ae showing the scars from self-inflicted wounds.

Image
A woman stands with a cane in a corner of a white room.
Choi Gwi-ja, another former comfort woman, said that she and other women endured multiple abortions because of the deep prejudice against biracial children in South Korea.

Under the South Korean court ruling, Ms. Park and others were each paid between $2,270 and $5,300, which did little to ease their financial distress.

Choi Gwi-ja, 77, fought back tears when she described multiple abortions she and other women endured because of the prejudice against biracial children in South Korea. Her voice quavered recalling women who killed themselves after G.I.s who had taken them as common-law wives subsequently abandoned them and their children.

She recalled how officials once urged the women, many of them illiterate like her, to earn dollars, promising them free apartments in their old age if they would sell their bodies for money at the camp towns. “It was all a fraud,” she said.

[PizzaSnake]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

DMac, it's always blame on 'Muricans with said poster. Don't even bother. Some people will swim against the current just to say they did so.

Joe

So you like sexual predators? Stay the hlel away from my daughters, friend. Pretty sure they know how to deal with your kind, though.

[Brooklyn]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

'Muricans under traitor Bush helped bring back 'bacha bazi' boy sex slavery but I can't quite agree with the notion that the USA brought anything like that in Korea.

[DMac]

You started this out with "Aint "Murica grand?"
I'd deduct from that article that they're a whole lot more grand than S. Korea.
youth's description wouldn't tempt me to change my mind about that, must be tough
for those South Koreans to change their ways.
Some GIs went to whorehouses provided by South Koreans whose government turned a
blind eye to the goings on and it's 'Muricans (particularly GIs) you point out as the bad guys?
Transmitted VD that they picked up where? Brought it in from the States?
It's an ugly picture but I'd bet the vast majority of GIs taking advantage of the facilities and
services offered had no idea about the sex trafficking or age of the girls. This issue worldwide
is much bigger than "Murica's just grand, you can find the same around the world where there
aint no "Muricans.
I find none of this shocking, my travels have taken me to many ports of call around the world
where sailors from many countries visit. It's not hard to find the gut, the prostitutes, this kind
of sleaze, in a whole lot of places out there. Naples aint real pretty and some of those tranny
Italian boys have got really nice aszes. One could be lured and fooled by one easily, they dress
up real pretty (no, never happened to me). Not a prostitute guy, never participated anywhere.

[DMac]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

DMac, it's always blame on 'Muricans with said poster. Don't even bother. Some people will swim against the current just to say they did so.

Joe

So you like sexual predators? Stay the hlel away from my daughters, friend. Pretty sure they know how to deal with your kind, though.

This is completely out of line, Snake. Because Joe feels differently with some/many/most of your views hardly warrants an insinuation that he likes sexual predators. Lighten up, fer chrissakes.

[PizzaSnake]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

'Muricans under traitor Bush helped bring back 'bacha bazi' boy sex slavery but I can't quite agree with the notion that the USA brought anything like that in Korea.

Did you bother to read the article?

[PizzaSnake]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

DMac, it's always blame on 'Muricans with said poster. Don't even bother. Some people will swim against the current just to say they did so.

Joe

So you like sexual predators? Stay the hlel away from my daughters, friend. Pretty sure they know how to deal with your kind, though.

This is completely out of line, Snake. Because Joe feels differently with some/many/most of your views hardly warrants an insinuation that he likes sexual predators. Lighten up, fer chrissakes.

Well, he didn't denounce them and their behavior. Or, he commneted without bothering to read the article. So that just makes him a blowhard, I guess.

Joe, please accept my apologies for insinuating you like sexual predators, you blowhard.

That meet with approval Dmac?

As for you, Dmac, I find your equivocation rather interesting as well. I ask you again, who was doing the fcuking of these South Korean females, some of whom appear to have been trafficked and some underage? You okay with that? You okay with the US Army, who's stated position is to not tolerate that behavior, turning a blind eye? Spare me the self-righteous "I didn't but others do" carp. Don't care for it and those who traffic in that sort of apologia. I can only imagine what other behaviors you can justify in your mind.

Don't bother to answer and attempt some half-aszed defense. Your other response shows what you are. Live with that. Oh, and share that with your family, why don't you?

[DMac]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

DMac, it's always blame on 'Muricans with said poster. Don't even bother. Some people will swim against the current just to say they did so.

Joe

So you like sexual predators? Stay the hlel away from my daughters, friend. Pretty sure they know how to deal with your kind, though.

This is completely out of line, Snake. Because Joe feels differently with some/many/most of your views hardly warrants an insinuation that he likes sexual predators. Lighten up, fer chrissakes.

Well, he didn't denounce them and their behavior. Or, he commneted without bothering to read the article. So that just makes him a blowhard, I guess.

Joe, please accept my apologies for insinuating you like sexual predators, you blowhard.

That meet with approval Dmac?

As for you, Dmac, I find your equivocation rather interesting as well. I ask you again, who was doing the fcuking of these South Korean females, some of whom appear to have been trafficked and some underage? You okay with that? You okay with the US Army, who's stated position is to not tolerate that behavior, turning a blind eye? Spare me the self-righteous "I didn't but others do" carp. Don't care for it and those who traffic in that sort of apologia. I can only imagine what other behaviors you can justify in your mind.

Don't bother to answer and attempt some half-aszed defense. Your other response shows what you are. Live with that. Oh, and share that with your family, why don't you?

Who the fcuk do you think you are, Snake, the moral compass, the guiding light, the rider of the highest of the high horses? Spare me your sanctimonious bullshidt. Did you miss the part where I said it was an ugly picture, and the part where I said the issue is worldwide and much bigger than "Murica's just grand? Why would you ask me if I'm okay with that worldwide ugly picture? This is the view you get up there on your highest of horses?
You can imagine whatever you want, Snake, and what that makes it is a figment of your imagination. You're mighty quick to bring other people's families in discussions, insinuate tolerance/acceptance of sex trafficking. I've seen your (tough guy) threats to others when there's any mention of your family though. The house of righteousness and center of moral compass is off limits....all others not so much, it's written in the Tough Guy Book Of Snake.

[MDlaxfan76]

I think this conversation has gotten out of hand with the personal attacks and negative assumptions.

It's a serious topic that such exploitation was committed with the complicity of the South Korean and American governments and many of their and our people, and it's still a tragedy that such sexual exploitation exists in the world.

Perhaps that's something everyone on here can agree with?

If so, 'nuff said...

[Brooklyn]

Can't read the article but based on what you've put up why would the South Koreans have been "thanking them for their service"?
Sounds to me as if it was the South Koreans, facilitated by their government, who were providing the "services". What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?

'Muricans under traitor Bush helped bring back 'bacha bazi' boy sex slavery but I can't quite agree with the notion that the USA brought anything like that in Korea.

Did you bother to read the article?

Was responding to the "What sort of blame are you trying to put on 'Muricans here?" question rather than the article. Sorry for not clarifying.

[DMac]

I think this conversation has gotten out of hand with the personal attacks and negative assumptions.

It's a serious topic that such exploitation was committed with the complicity of the South Korean and American governments and many of their and our people, and it's still a tragedy that such sexual exploitation exists in the world.

Perhaps that's something everyone on here can agree with?

If so, 'nuff said...

There's been no indication that there's not full agreement there.
Joe's comment had nothing to do with sex trafficking, yet Snake
warns him to stay away from his daughters because he somehow
figures Joe is okay with that. That's pretty serious business, low
life stuff, completely out of line and unacceptable.
The point of my post is that Snake only wants to point fingers at
"Muricans bad while the South Koreans are every bit as bad, if not
worse for knowingly letting it happen in their country and doing
nothing to shut those businesses down. It's ugly, very ugly.
JFTR, there are other daughters in the world who never needed
to worry about being around Joe. Like his sister, a pretty top notch
and well liked gal who mentors and coaches young girls. Ya never know,
perhaps one day Snake's daughters will have the privilege of playing for her.

[youthathletics]

Consider the source....Snake is always like this, even in his other vernacular and we know who he is, his IP address does not lie.

[MDlaxfan76]

Like I said, the personal back and forth isn't useful.

Americans were complicit. South Koreans were complicit.
It's an ugly history, and there's an ugly ongoing reality.
Serious.

Let's not deny any of that, ok?
If anyone actually disagrees with that, by all means speak up and we can explore the disagreement.

Obviously that doesn't make all Americans complicit, though I suspect the point pizza was trying to make is that "Muricans", meaning those who either claim America has done no wrong or want to bury any sins of the past, would do well to take off the blinders.

My opinion is that neither knee-jerk reaction, to condemn America or to white-wash America, is appropriate.

I do come down, generally, on wanting us to look honestly at our country's official government's and citizens' mistakes and to hold them, meaning ourselves, accountable for them. I think doing so makes us a better country, a more vibrant democracy, whereas not doing so creates or accepts rot at the core.

So, I'm a bit tougher on the white-washers than the condemners, generally speaking.
But neither extreme makes sense to me.

[cradleandshoot]

So the brilliant minds on this forum finally realized the young GIs and young Marines and young Sailors on this forum enjoy getting their dicks wet. When I was in basic training at Ft Benning Georgia those young and dumb and full of cum trainees heading to town had 3 goals. #1 was to get chitfaced drunk. # 2 usually involved the drunken soldier getting a tattoo. # 3 was paying good money to get your knob polished by one of the local working girls.

[old salt]

I find none of this shocking, my travels have taken me to many ports of call around the world
where sailors from many countries visit. It's not hard to find the gut, the prostitutes, this kind
of sleaze, in a whole lot of places out there. Naples aint real pretty and some of those tranny
Italian boys have got really nice aszes. One could be lured and fooled by one easily, they dress
up real pretty (no, never happened to me). Not a prostitute guy, never participated anywhere.

...one night, on the way back to the ship, after a night of liberty in Naples, I had to explain to my younger copilot on his first deployment, why he might be disappointed if he talked to "her".

[DMac]

Yes sir, Naples was a real eye opening education.
Italy doesn't rank in the top ten of my favorite
ports of call.