East Asia

Citation:

Moon, Katharine H. S. 1999. "South Korean Movements Against Militarized Sexual Labor." Asian Survey 39 (2): 310-27.

Author: Katherine H. S. Moon

Abstract:

The suffering that many South Korean women experienced under the Japanese military's sexual slavery (chongsindae) practices has been properly noted not only in South Korea but in other nations as well. The chongsindae movement (CM), however, was preceded by a similar group, the kijich'on movement (KM). KM was formed in the mid-1980s to recognize and publicize the plight of Korean prostitutes servicing American soldiers in the US military camptown, or kijich'on. A comparison of the two movements' ideology, leadership, and organization is presented to provide a rationale for CM's success in making the 'military comfort women' a universal women's rights concern, even as KM has remained localized and less recognized as a group.

Keywords: prostitution, Japanese military, US military, chongsindae movement, sex trafficking, kijich'on movement

Annotation:

• The chongsindae movement (CM) addresses the problem of the military “comfort system” in South Korea which resulted in women being trafficked to military bases and forced to work as sex workers, beginning with the Japanese colonial rule. Since the mid-1980s, the kijich’on (KM) movement has also been formed, protesting the issue of U.S. military camptown prostitutes who became “victims of debt bondage and objects of foreign domination” (311). Moon discusses these two movements in connection with each other, comparing the ideology, leadership, and organization of each in the context of the changing civil in South Korea since the late 1980s. The author’s goal is to account for the relatively localized and less recognized status of the KM movement as opposed to the overall success and publicity gained by the CM movement. She ultimately concludes that the CM movement has overshadowed rather than supported the kijich’on problem.

Topics: Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarization, Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Sexual Slavery, SV against Women, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea

Year: 1999

Citation:

Moon, Katharine H. S. 1997. Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in US-Korea Relations. New York: Columbia University Press.

Author: Katharine H. S. Moon

Abstract:

Drawing on a vast array of data - archival materials, interviews with officials, social workers, and the candid revelations of sex industry workers - Moon explores the way in which the bodies of Korean prostitutes - where, when, and how they worked and lived - were used by the United States and the Korean governments in their security agreements. Weaving together issues of gender, race, sex, the relationship between individuals and the state, and foreign policy, she shows how women such as the Korean prostitutes are marginalized and made invisible in militarily dependent societies both because of the degradation of their work and because of their importance for national security.

Keywords: prostitution, governance, military sexual assault, national security, sex trafficking

Topics: Gender, Women, Governance, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Race, Security, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea, United States of America

Year: 1997

Citation:

Lee, June JH. 2005. "Human Trafficking in East Asia: Current Trends, Data Collection, and Knowledge Gaps." International Migration 43 (1-2): 165-201.

Author: June JH Lee

Keywords: militarization, human trafficking, data collection, Filipina women

Annotation:

• The goal of this paper is to “examine the general trends in human trafficking reported in East Asia from rather disparate sources, identify the main issues and problems raised in the existing information sources, and discuss data collection, research activities, and knowledge gaps” (166).
• The link between trafficked Filipina women and the Rest and Recreations facilities of U.S. military bases in South Korea is discussed, and the author notes that the connection between the sex trade and militarization in South Korea is a recurrent theme in studies of the issue. 

Topics: Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Militarization, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: China, Japan, Philippines, South Korea

Year: 2005

Citation:

Petchesky, Rosalind P. 2005. "Rights of the Body and Perversions of War: Sexual Rights and Wrongs Ten Years Past Beijing." International Social Science Journal 57 (184): 301-18.

Author: Rosalind P. Petchesky

Abstract:

The Beijing Platform for Action (1995) and its companion documents – those of the Vienna Conference on Human Rights (1993) and the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) – took important steps toward securing recognition for what we might call human rights of the body. These are affirmative rights relating to sexual expression, reproductive choice and access to health care and negative rights pertaining to freedom from violence, torture and abuse. But ten years later, the violated male bodies of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and Gujarat seem to mock certain of Beijing's most basic premises: that women are primarily the victims rather than the perpetrators of bodily abuses; and that, as such, women are, or should be, the privileged beneficiaries of bodily integrity rights. This paper re-examines these premises in the shadow of the “war on terrorism”, religious extremism, and practices of racialised, sexual, and often homophobic violence against men that emerge in wars and ethnic conflicts. In particular it looks at the war in Iraq and how that war configures such practices in both old and new ways. My purpose is not to repudiate feminist visions but rather to challenge the exclusive privileging of women as the bearers of sexual rights and to open up discussion of new, more inclusive coalitions of diverse social movements for rights of the body.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Health, International Human Rights, Peace Processes, Religion, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Torture, Sexual Torture Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2005

Citation:

Lee, Hye-Kyung. 2003. "Gender, Migration and Civil Activism in South Korea." Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 12: 127-53.

Author: Hye-Kyung Lee

Abstract:

Since the late 1980s, Korea has experienced an influx of migrant workers from neighboring Asian countries. The total number of migrant workers in 1990 was less than 20,000, but rose to 340,000 in 2002. International migration in South Korea shows less extensive feminization than in comparable receiving countries in East Asia. This paper examines why female migration, which accounts for only 30-35 percent of all migrant workers, is less extensive in South Korea, and why domestic work, the major occupation which has accelerated female migration in the region, is not popular in South Korea. It also assesses the current state of migrant and civil society movements providing assistance to migrant women in South Korea. Although the number of these NGOs is small, their activities have highlighted the problems and issues in international marriages and the entry of foreign female entertainers in the sex industry. The paper argues that civil movements for migrant women have contributed to reconsiderations of notions of nationality and citizenship in Korea.

Keywords: immigration, migrant workers

Topics: Citizenship, Civil Society, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Nationalism, NGOs Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea

Year: 2003

Citation:

Hughes, Donna M., Katherine Y. Chon, and Derek P. Ellerman. 2007. "Modern-Day Comfort Women: The U.S. Military, Transnational Crime, and the Trafficking of Women." Violence Against Women 13 (9): 901-22.

Authors: Donna M. Hughes, Katherine Y. Chon, Derek P. Ellerman

Abstract:

The trafficking of women has been a lucrative moneymaker for transnational organized crime networks, ranking third, behind drugs and arms, in criminal earnings. The U.S. military bases in South Korea were found to form a hub for the transnational trafficking of women from the Asia Pacific and Eurasia to South Korea and the United States.
This study, conducted in 2002, examined three types of trafficking that were connected to U.S. military bases in South Korea: domestic trafficking of Korean women to clubs around the military bases in South Korea, transnational trafficking of women to clubs around military bases in South Korea, and transnational trafficking of women from South Korea to massage parlors in the United States. 

Keywords: military sexual assault, sex trafficking, organized crime, US military bases

Topics: Gender, Women, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Sexual Violence, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, East Asia Countries: South Korea, United States of America

Year: 2007

Citation:

Cheng, Sea-Ling. 2002. Transnational Desires: Trafficked Filipinas in US Military Camp Towns in South Korea. PhD diss., University of Oxford.

Author: Sea-Ling Cheng

Topics: Gender, Women, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Philippines, South Korea, United States of America

Year: 2002