S Korean Sex Workers Wage War to Protect Brothels

South Korean prostitutes in underwear and covered in body paint douse themselves with flammable liquid on a street to show they’re willing to die during a protest in Seoul, South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea — The pimps and prostitutes of Yeongdeungpo start the day as if preparing for a siege, stocking their brothels with flammable liquid and gas containers. Large, red-lettered signs warn police that they’re willing to die to protect their livelihoods.

“We can turn on the gas and light the flames,” said a 47-year-old pimp who would only give her surname Sohn. “We know that we don’t have much chance of winning … but we’re ready to die fighting.”

Nearly seven years after tough laws began driving thousands of South Korean prostitutes out of business, the sex workers of the Yeongdeungpo red-light district in Seoul are fighting back, spurred by what they say is an unprecedented campaign of police harassment.

Since April they’ve staged large, sometimes violent, protests that provide a glimpse of the tensions in this fast-changing country as ambitious urban redevelopment projects encroach on old neighborhoods once known for their nightlife.

Rallies by sex workers against police crackdowns crop up occasionally in South Korea, but the protests in Yeongdeungpo — which have drawn hundreds of other prostitutes, pimps and supporters — have been unusual in their size, organization and fury.

The district’s 40 to 50 prostitutes describe their fight in life-and-death terms. At a recent protest, about 20 topless women covered in body and face paint doused themselves in flammable liquid and had to be restrained from setting themselves on fire.

‘Die gloriously’
The demonstrations come as new building projects around the country threaten gritty neighborhoods that are home to aging bars, street food stalls and brothels. If the prostitutes in Yeongdeungpo lose their jobs, they could struggle to find work elsewhere.

“We are the people who eat, sleep and live here. Where can we move?” prostitute Jang Se-hee said in an interview inside a large tent where sex workers were discussing how to resist police.

The 36-year-old Jang, who wore big sunglasses with plum-colored lenses, her hair tied up in a bun, said her earnings have plunged from as much as $9,200 a month to about $3,700 since police began harrying the brothels in April.

On a recent night, about 20 prostitutes stood in skimpy clothing behind pink neon-lit brothel windows, shouting out invitations to a few men walking along the street. Many brothels have suspended business because of the crackdown. Signs in those still open show their occupants’ defiance: “We will die here,” they read, or “I will pour fuel on my body and die gloriously.”

Prostitution was banned in South Korea in 1961, but police rarely enforced the law. Tougher legislation was created, however, after a 2002 fire killed 14 women confined at a drinking salon and forced to entertain and sometimes have sex with customers.

About 259,000 people, 70 percent of them male customers, have been arrested since the new laws took effect in 2004. Nearly 4,000 prostitutes have left their brothels, while 1,800 remain, and seven of the country’s 35 major red-light districts have disappeared, according to police records.

Prostitutes and pimps say police have taken a new and aggressive approach in Yeongdeungpo that has driven away most customers: Stepped-up patrols, police cars parked visibly in the area and plainclothes officers watching with binoculars.

Jang said police stormed the area three times in June alone, arresting three prostitutes and three customers.

“There hasn’t been this kind of crackdown before,” said Kang Hyun-joon, a former pimp who runs an association of prostitutes and pimps in South Korea.

Sex workers suspect the nearby Times Square department store pushed police to act against the brothels. Police and store officials deny the claim.

The National Police Agency says officers are also clamping down on other districts as part of a routine nationwide crackdown.

One Yeongdeungpo police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because of department rules, said police decided to shut down the brothels because residents increasingly voiced worry about young students passing through the area since the upscale department store opened in 2009.

Blaze killed six
It is not the first time South Korea’s development boom has sparked friction in older neighborhoods.

In 2009, a police raid on a building occupied by squatters near another Seoul red-light district led to a blaze that killed six people.

Protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at charging police commandos, causing the fire. The building was eventually demolished to make room for planned new high-rise buildings.

Brothel workers and other critics say police crackdowns have unfairly targeted traditional red-light zones, while overlooking other sex businesses thriving in the shadows.

Among those are “kiss rooms,” where men can pay for sex, and one-room apartments offering sexual services.

Men can also buy sex at barber shops, massage parlors and karaoke bars on almost all major streets and through online social networking sites.

South Korea runs nine support centers offering vocational training and psychological counseling to former prostitutes where they can work for a monthly salary of about $460 to $920, according to government officials.

Many women, however, find it hard to adjust to new lives and to resist the better pay of sex work. Despite the social stigma, they drop out of the centers and return to prostitution.

North Korea ‘hit by foot-and-mouth outbreak’

South Korea is also tackling a serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease

 

North Korea has been hit by foot-and-mouth disease, reports from Seoul say.

A spokesperson for South Korea’s Unification Ministry said that recent visitors had reported the outbreak of the communicable cattle disease.

But Lee Jong-hu said North Korea had not confirmed the outbreak.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said that Pyongyang had deployed military personnel to disinfect farms since the outbreak of the disease in December, citing an unnamed official in Seoul.

The authorities had blocked road traffic in affected areas and ordered residents not to travel, said another South Korean newspaper, the JoongAng Ilbo.

North Korea suffers from food shortages and relies on food aid from foreign aid organisations and donors to feed its people.

The reported outbreak in the North comes as South Korean authorities work to contain the same disease by culling about two million livestock.

Food-and-mouth disease affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, goats and deer. However, the disease very rarely affects humans.

If confirmed, it will be the second reported outbreak of the disease in the North. In 2007, the South sent a team of experts, medicine and equipment to the North to help contain the infection.

But bilateral relations between the two Koreans have worsened in recent months due to the sinking of a South Korean warship and the bombardment of a Southern border island by North Korea military last year.

Two Koreas threaten each other

The two Koreas have become more serious with their war rhetoric.

Threats have been ramped up with the South’s President Lee Myung-bak vowing retaliation against any future North Korean provocation.

In a radio address he said: “We have now been awakened to the realisation that war can be prevented and peace assured only when such provocations are met with a strong response.”

He continued by saying that his country did not fear war with its northern neighbor.

He was adamant the military would respond “relentlessly” if the country came under attack.

Meanwhile, North Korea has warned that the South’s recent military drills could lead to war on the Korean Peninsula due to “reckless military provocation.”

The tensions were raised on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea shelled the South’s Yeonpyeong Island on November 23, killing four people.

 

N. Korea warns Seoul to ax military drill

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Friday it would strike again at the South if a live-firing drill planned by Seoul on a disputed island went ahead, with an even stronger response than last month’s shelling that killed four people.

North Korean official news agency KCNA said the “intensity and scope” of its retaliation will be worse if the Seoul goes through with its announced one-day live-fire drills sometime between Saturday and Tuesday on Yeonpyeong Island.

The North responded to similar South Korean drills on Nov. 23 by raining artillery shells on the tiny fishing community near the Koreas’ disputed sea border.

The South has said the drills are part of “routine, justified” exercises. Representatives of the U.N. Command that oversees the armistice that ended the Korean War will observe the drills.

North Korea’s warning came after Seoul promised a more robust response to any further attacks on its territory. The shelling of the island was the first time since the Korean war that the North had attacked South Korean territory.

China, the North’s main backer, has said that Pyongyang had promised restraint and the threat of a new attack by the North came as China told visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg that the two big powers should cooperate more in defusing tension on the Korean peninsula.

China’s top diplomat, Dai Bingguo, urged closer coordination over the Korean peninsula during talks with Steinberg, the second most senior official in the U.S. State Department, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

Steinberg was in Beijing for three days up to Friday to press China to do more to bring to heel its ally, North Korea, which last month sparked alarm by shelling the island and disclosing advances in uranium enrichment which could give it a new path to make nuclear weapons.

China has avoided publicly condemning its long-time ally over the deadly shelling and nuclear moves, and instead pleaded with other powers to embrace fresh talks with North Korea.

US,South Korea Hold Talks On Countering North’s Aggression

(RTTNews) – Talks between the US and South Korea got underway in the South Korean capital Seoul on Wednesday as the two long-time allies discussed ways to deter future aggression from North Korea, the official Yonhap news agency has reported.

The South Korean delegation to the talks is led by Gen.Han Min-koo, chairman of the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), while the American team is headed by Han’s counterpart, Adm. Mike Mullen.

Besides the Communist nation’s brinkmanship, the discussions will also center on the apparent motives behind the aggression and concerns about its future actions and its temperamental regime.

The US delegation at the talks also includes Kathleen Stephens, Washington’s ambassador to Seoul, Gen. Walter Sharp, the top U.S. commander in South Korea and Lt.Gen. Charles Jacoby, director of the strategic plans and policy section on the U.S. Joint Staff.

Mullen is expected to call on South Korea’s new Defense Minister and ex-JCS Kim Kwan-jin in Seoul. His visit is also meant to show US solidarity with South Korea.

An unnamed official in Seoul’s Defense Ministry told Yonhap that Han and Mullen intend “to discuss ways to improve the Republic of Korea-U.S. defense cooperation.” Also, Seoul and Washington are likely to discuss the possibility of holding more US-South Korean joint military exercises in the future.

North Korea had bristled with anger at a joint military drill held last week.

Meanwhile, South Korea reported that blasts have been heard in North Korea, which were apparently triggered by a live-fire drill.

South Korea’s defense minister vows airstrikes if North attacks

U.S. Navy crewman on the deck of the USS George Washington during a joint military exercise with South Korea, Nov. 30, 2010

(CNN) — South Korea’s new defense minister said his country would respond with airstrikes if North Korea attacks it again, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Friday.

‘We will definitely air raid North Korea,” Kim Kwan-jin said at his confirmation hearing when asked how they would respond if South Korea was struck again.

Kim was appointed defense minister last week amid growing tensions between the Koreas.

On November 23, North Korea shelled South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island, killing four South Koreans — including two civilians.

North Korea said the South provoked the attack because shells from a South Korean military drill landed in the North’s waters

Tokyo Shimbun: N. Korea Might Attack South Korea Again Within This Year

North Korea could carry out another attack on South Korea before the end of the year.
This is according to Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun on Thursday, which quoted a well-informed source on North Korea.
It reported that a high-ranking official at Pyeongyang’s espionage agency said there will be another shelling attack, targeting Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds the South Korean capital of Seoul, this month.
The newspaper said although it is unclear as to whether the official made the claim based on a specific plan to attack the South, the fact that he hinted at the possibility of further provocation is raising great concern… especially since the assault is aimed at the mainland.
Tokyo Shimbun added that the North Korean official said Pyeongyang also plans to target South Korean warships in the West Sea.
The newspaper explained that the communist country’s espionage agency is in charge of spying activities in South Korea and abroad and also mentioned that Seoul’s Defense Minister Kim Tae-young raised the possibility of the agency leading the November attack on Yeonpyeong Island at the National Assembly last week.
Another North Korean military official reportedly said that Pyeongyang’s latest artillery assault was a military act planned well ahead of November 23rd and heir-apparent Kim Jong-un will continue carrying out more deadly retaliatory attacks on South Korea.
Eoh Jin-joo, Arirang News.

DEC 02, 2010

Reporter : jjeoh@arirang.co.kr

South Korean marines call for bombing of North Korean capital

Taiwan Sun
Saturday 27th November, 2010

As the South Korean army laid to rest the two servicemen killed by North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong island near a disputed sea border, thousands of marines are calling for a “thousandfold” revenge.

The two South Korean marines killed in the exchange of fire, the most serious since the 1953 armistice, were buried Saturday amid vast anti-North Korean protests, which were attended by thousands of marines calling for the presidential palace in Pyongyang to be bombed.

At the highest levels of the country’s military, emotions ran strong as well.

“All Marines, including Marines on service and reserve Marines, will avenge the two at any cost,” said Lieutenant General Yoo Nak Joon, commander of the South Korean Marine Corps.

In a move intended to be a strong statement of resolve, the United States and South Korea have announced that joint naval exercises will be carried out near the disputed sea border, with the aircraft carrier USS George Washington en-route.

North Korea has condemned the move as irresponsible and accused the US and South Korea of taking the region to the brink of all out war. China has criticised the US and South Korea as well, though less stridently, calling for an end to any further military provocation.

“The top priority now is to keep the situation under control and to ensure such events do not happen again,” said a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

 

North Korean Shelling Shatters Islanders’ Illusion of Security

Like many of the 1,700 residents of Yeonpyeong island, Shin Seung Won had grown accustomed to the distant rumble of artillery fire by North and South Korea. This week, the tit-for-tat exercises took on a deadly reality.

“I’ve lived with the sound of shelling all my life,” said Shin, who runs a motel on the South Korean island, where the military conducts live-firing drills less than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) away from North Korean troops. “I looked out the window after hearing a thundering sound and saw my neighbor’s house on fire,” Shin said in a telephone interview.North Korea has sought to justify its Nov. 23 shelling of Yeonpyeong, the first such attack on South Korean soil in half a century, on what it termed “military provocation” in disputed waters. Two soldiers and two civilians died in the barrage, which triggered declines in global financial markets and drew international condemnation.

“The proximity of these islands to the western border makes North Korea feel like it’s constantly at gunpoint,” said Kim Yong Hyun, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. “The disputed area also gives North Korea an easy excuse for provocation to create havoc and so get the international community’s attention.”

The MSCI World index dropped as much as 2 percent on the day of the attack and the won fell more than 1 percent. President Barack Obama, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan were among leaders who condemned Kim Jong Il’s regime. China’s Premier Wen Jiabao called for restraint without ascribing any blame to North Korea, a communist ally for the past 60 years.

Military Response

North Korea’s state-run news service yesterday said it urged the South to call off exercises in the area and warned of a military response to any infringement of its “inviolable territorial” waters. The U.S. sent the aircraft carrier USS George Washington for joint drills off South Korea’s western coast between Nov. 28 and Dec. 1. The exercises had been planned before the shelling and are “defensive in nature,” the U.S. forces in Seoul said in an e-mailed statement.

Yeonpyeong lies 2 1/2-hours by boat from the South Korean port of Incheon. The government resumed ferry services yesterday after evacuating many island residents following the attack. The island is situated about 2 miles from the western maritime border disputed by North Korea.

The sea border was demarcated by the United Nations after the 1950-1953 civil war and never accepted by the North. The area is rich in fishing, attracting boats from both Koreas and China during the crabbing season in May and June.

Naval Skirmishes

North and South Korea engaged in deadly naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002 close to the island. The area was also where the South Korean warship Cheonan sank in March, killing 46 sailors. An international panel blamed a torpedo from a North Korean mini-submarine for the incident, a finding denied by Kim Jong Il’s regime and never accepted by China, his closest ally.

North Korea started firing artillery after the South Korean navy conducted its monthly live-fire exercises near the border. North Korea said it contacted the South at 8 a.m. on Nov. 23 to demand maneuvers be scrapped.

“Should the South Korean puppet group dare intrude into our territorial waters even 0.001 mm, our revolutionary armed forces will unhesitatingly continue taking merciless military counter-actions against it,” North Korea said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency after the shelling.

Under fire from the North, South Korean Marines took 10 minutes to pinpoint their target before counter-attacking, Lieutenant-General Joo Jong Hwa told reporters on a tour of the island yesterday. There has been no information on possible North Korean casualties.

Artillery Exchange

“North Korea argues that we fired at them first, but this is the direction that we fired,” at earlier, Joo said, pointing southwest, away from the peninsula.

Lieutenant Kim Jung Soo said his company had been conducting firing drills until just before the North Korean barrage commenced. Two members of his team wore helmets that had been scorched by the shelling.

The North’s artillery attack set 22 houses ablaze and burned at least 3,300 square meters of mountainous area, South Korea’s Ministry of Public Administration and Security said on its website. At least 740 people were evacuated from the island, according to the ministry and Coast Guard.

Washing Dishes

Yu Kyung Soon, 53, said she was washing dishes in the elementary school cafeteria on the island when the windows suddenly shattered. Together with her female co-workers, she crawled on the floor seeking a place to hide.

When we emerged from the building “it was a sea of fire, with dark smoke everywhere,” Yu said in an interview at Incheon port yesterday. “I thought ‘this is war. This is the day that I will die.’”

The school’s 90 students were immediately ushered to a bomb shelter, she said.

“The kids were loud and excited, but none of them seemed to be really scared,” Yu said. “It was just minutes after we were joking how the North Koreans would never attack us first and target the capital instead.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net; Sookyung Seo in Seoul at sseo10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bill Austin at billaustin@bloomberg.net

DESTRUCTION IN SOUTH KOREA

Destroyed houses are seen after they were hit by artillery shells fired by North Korea on Yeonpyeong Island November 24, 2010. South Korea warned North Korea of “enormous retaliation” if it took more aggressive steps after Pyongyang fired scores of artillery shells at a South Korean island in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbor since the Korean War ended in 1953.