South Korea, a wealthy, powerful Asian super-state, technology hub and stalwart U. Indeed, paid sex is available all over South Korea -- in coffee shops, shopping malls, the barber shop, hotels, motels, as well as the so-called juicy bars, frequented by American soldiers, and the red-light districts, which operate openly. Internet chat rooms and cell phones have opened up whole new streams of business for ambitious prostitutes and pimps.
If that estimate is closer to the truth, it would mean that 1 out of every 25 women in the country is selling her body for sex -- despite the passage of tough anti-sex-trafficking legislation in recent years.
For women between the ages of 15 and 29, up to one-fifth have worked in the sex industry at one time or another, according to estimates. Indeed, the sex industry in the face of laws criminalizing and stigmatizing it is so open that prostitutes periodically stage public protests to express their anger over anti-prostitution laws.
According to the government-run Korean Institute of Criminology, one-fifth of men in their 20s buy sex at least four times a month, creating an endless customer base for prostitutes. A separate survey suggested that half of female runaways become prostitutes.
However, it is precisely that academic pressure along with other family issues that drives many of these teens onto the streets. Girls should be taught that from an early age in class here in South Korea, but they aren't. Not only is South Korea home to child and teen prostitution, but South Korean men are also driving such illicit trade in foreign countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, according to the Korean Institute of Criminology, based on surveys conducted in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines.
