The court said decriminalizing prostitution would trigger explosive growth in sex trafficking, threaten the stability of South Korean society and economy, and incite disorderly sexual behavior. “Law enforcement denies that apathy is the reason for the industry`s spread, instead pointing to limited resources and difficulties in gathering evidence.” Police have set a certain period of time each year for anti-prostitution raids as well as regular police raids,” an official with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said on condition of anonymity. “However, the size of the police force is very limited and there are other departments we have to deal with, so it is difficult for us to apply all our strength to the problems of prostitution.” Adolescent prostitution is a problem. According to some estimates, there are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls working as prostitutes in karaoke, love hotels, sex clubs and bars. In some cases, girls are kidnapped by gangsters and forced into entry-level prostitution. In 2003, the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality announced that 260,000 women – 1 in 25 Korean women – could work in the sex industry. However, the Korea Institute for Women`s Development has suggested that 514,000 to 1.2 million Korean women participate in the prostitution industry. [27] In addition, a similar report by the Korea Institute of Criminology found that 20% of 20-year-old men pay for sex at least four times a month,[28] with 358,000 visits from prostitutes daily. [29] In 2004, the South Korean government passed an anti-prostitution law (Special Law on Sex Trade 2004), which prohibits the buying and selling of sexual services and closes brothels. [30] Soon after, more than 2,500 sex workers took to the streets to demand the repeal of the law, believing it threatened their livelihoods. [31] In 2006, to address the demand for prostitutes, the Ministry of Gender Equality offered money to companies whose male employees agreed not to pay for sex after office parties. Policymakers have said they want to end a culture in which men get drunk at parties and buy sex.
[32] Critics of anti-prostitution laws say they restrict women`s freedom over their bodies. They also say harsher penalties have made sex work more dangerous for women by creating a thriving underground industry where they sell sex in bars, apartment rooms and via social media and dating apps, often making them more vulnerable to abusive shoppers and pimps. In 1995, the New York Times reported: “North of the village`s affluent downtown, wedged between Acme Cleaning and Papa John`s Pizza in a mall at 352 Great Neck Road, is a storefront that has flourished without gravel or name. The neighbors next door, of course, were wary of the shy residents of the store: male customers who arrived with furtive glances and left with dishevelled hair; Korean women who worked unusual hours in sparse cocktail dresses. ” smiled one of the pizzeria employees wearing aprons after Nassau police raided the store for the second time on prostitution charges. They were really quiet and bought us pizza. I just laughed about it because they didn`t do anything to us. It happens all the time. [Source: New York Times, May 28, 1995] According to the New York Times: “Since Nassau County began cracking down on massage parlors, some of Korea`s prostitutes have been sentenced to prison terms of up to seven months. In the Nassau County jail, a young Korean woman is serving a sentence for prostitution that has now lasted more than seven months.
The ex-wife of an American soldier, Ms. A., 43, of Flushing, had been arrested several times for prostitution when she faced District B Judge in December. [Source: New York Times, 28. May 1995] “But it is clear that Nassau has a very different orientation than Westchester County, where women receive fines and suspended sentences for prostitution. Instead, Westchester prosecutors are targeting homeowners who are fined under a harassment law. “What we found is that individual prostitutes are not the problem,” a spokesman for the prosecutor`s office said. “In fact, they are the victims.” Two other dissenting judges, Kim Yi-su and Kang Il-won, argued that the state should help rehabilitate prostitutes instead of punishing them with criminal charges. But the majority of the court argued that decriminalizing prostitution would encourage the sex industry and “further degrade sexual morality” in a culture where a common form of corruption involves “dangers,” a form of eating and eating that often involves prostitutes.