![]() ![]() It gave all kind of side effects, but they didn’t care if we got sick. “Then they locked us up in medical detention centers where we underwent involuntary treatment with penicillin injections, which was excruciatingly painful. “Soldiers would point the girls out they got an STD from,” another plaintiff, “Mrs Lee” (not her real name), recalled. Sometimes, police would raid the bars and arrest girls infected with sexually transmitted diseases. “There were lots of girls working in the bars that were underage.” “The city registered me and gave me a false ID, even though I was clearly a minor,” she said. During the trial, she testified anonymously, wearing a veil. Local governments, police and officials from the Ministry of Health all cooperated, Mrs Kim remembers. A mural inside a camp town bar makes clear the kind of entertainment on offer. The Department of Tourism and Transportation of Gyeonggi province estimated in 1970 that the yanggongju (“western princesses”) or yangsaeksi (“western brides”) – the derogatory names that officials gave the women at the time – earned $8 million annually. Roughly 46,000 Korean workers in camp towns earned US$70 million in 1969 alone. In a landmark decision, the Seoul High Court ruled in February that the South Korean government “operated and managed” military camp towns in order to “boost morale among foreign troops” and keep “an essential military alliance for national security” in place, “while mobilizing prostitutes” to acquire hard foreign currency. In 2014 she and the other “camp-town women” filed a lawsuit against the South Korean state with the help of Durebang, a civic group. State involvement in ‘patriotic prostitution’ Because it wasn’t just the employment agency that was to blame: The state was involved, too. Now, after 46 years, she and 116 other women who shared similar fates can celebrate a judicial victory over the wrongdoings committed against them. She attempted suicide three times but was found in time, every time. During her time as a sex worker, she was moved from camp town to camp town. I was already in debt because of the referral fee for my first job – cleaning and cooking in a teahouse – he had landed me.” US Army base Camp Stanley in Uijiongbu, a gritty garrison town just north of Seoul. “I had no idea I would end up there,” Mrs Kim said. “He just looked at me and sent me off.” The man indeed had a job for her: He sent her to a camp town outside the base of Camp Stanley in Uijeongbu, a gritty garrison town directly north of Seoul, as a sex worker. I had no idea why but I obeyed,” she said. “The man at the employment agency asked me to stand in front of him. She was forced to leave the house and turn to an employment agency for work. One day “an uncomfortable situation” with her brother-in-law occurred. She had arrived on the mainland a year earlier from the island of Jeju to live with her elder sister and her husband. “Mrs Kim” – she requested to be identified only by her surname, and refused to be photographed for this article – said of those days: “There were a lot of women.” She was forced to prostitute herself to American troops from 1972, when she was only 14 years old. A lingering legacy of the Korean War, camp towns sprang up across South Korea as US bases firmed up their presence after the fighting ended in 1953. Things were different in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, when this camp town, and others like it, were buzzing with soldiers, prostitutes and “juicy bars” – entertainment establishments that satisfied their young male customers’ every need. Photo: Anouk Eigenraam/Asia Times Camp town sleaze Beyond the walls of Camp Casey, a “ville” or “camp town” of shops, restaurants and bars caters to the GIs.īut as the US prepares to shift all troops to a massive new base complex in Pyeongtaek, southwest of Seoul, and strict US military regulations against patronization of prostitutes impacts the sex trade, the “camp town,” too, appears to be winding down operations. This is the scene in Dongducheon, northeast of Seoul, home to the largest US ground combat unit in South Korea, the 2 nd Infantry Division. ![]()
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