By I wonder how long this will last?:
The Philippine government has stopped approving requests from promoters seeking authorization for Filipinas to work in the “juicy bars” that cluster around U.S. military bases in South Korea and where prostitution is a continuing problem.
“If the venue is located near a U.S. base or the so-called seamen’s clubs near the shipyards … we have not been approving or verifying the employment documents,” Philippine Embassy labor attache Delmer Cruz said Tuesday.
A Stars and Stripes investigation in September highlighted the ease with which a U.S. servicemember could arrange to pay for sex with the bar workers. [Stars & Stripes]
Read the rest at the link, but Stars & Stripes I like you all and you generally do a good job, but it didn’t take an “investigation” to know that servicemembers could easily pay for sex in a juicy bar. This has been going on for years and will continue to go on as long as there are US soldiers stationed in South Korea.
Have you guys who frequent these juicy bars seen the amount of Filipinas working in the clubs dropping?:
The Philippines crackdown started last year and has been stepped up gradually, Cruz said, pointing out that promoters now submit proposed contracts for work only at venues away from bases and shipyards. The initiative has already thinned the ranks of Filipinas working at South Korean juicy bars dramatically, according to businessmen in Songtan’s Shinjang Mall entertainment district outside Osan Air Base and the Anjung-ri bar district outside Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek.
Later in the article its says that club owners are responding by hiring more Russians. It is simple supply and demand, so more Russians will act as prostitutes instead of Filipinas if this report is true ,which means the central issue of human trafficking still hasn’t been addressed. I have always believed that if USFK is serious about stopping human trafficking than it should put all clubs that hire third country nationals off limits. If that isn’t done this issue will not go away because the bar owners will just keep finding different foreign women to traffic in. By forcing the bars to employ Korean workers it would pretty much make the human trafficking issue go away because Korean nationals would be much harder to traffic in.
8:17 am on February 5th, 2010 1
Korean bars hiring Korean nationals are not engaging in trafficking, which involves long-distance transport across borders.
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February 5th, 2010 at 11:03 am
I thought that, by definition, the “trafficking” of illegal activities (e.g., drugs, weapons, humans for prostitution, etc.) only required the action of dealing or trading in it, and not necessarily the transport of those things or individuals.
The definition gets muddled (and descriptivists would say that it changes) because of the other meaning of traffic regarding movement of vehicles, vessels, and people, but it still stands (I believe) that merely the trading and dealing in such illegal activity is trafficking.
Therefore, Korean women in the sex trade are trafficked, even if they are housed across an alleyway from where they choose or are forced to do business. And even if my broader definition is wrong, Korean women have been (and I guess still are) trafficked by force or by deception across their province or across the country to the venues where they forcibly or willingly provide sex for money.
I wrote about this extensively one time at Jodi’s “Asia Pages,” but she has decided not to leave her blog up and Wayback Machine doesn’t have access to it. I had mentioned the movie “Chang” for a good depiction of this in the past in Korea. Post-war Koreans adopted a “business model” of deception and force quite similar to what Comfort Women recruiters had used extensively in the 1940s.
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February 5th, 2010 at 11:32 am
The United Nations definition of human trafficking is “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”.
Some Korean prostitutes fit the definition but not all do. I wouldn’t try to make any generalizations or guess at any percentages.
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February 5th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
I’m satisfied with the UN definition, which lists “transportation” as one thing that could define it but which is not necessarily needed (judging by “or” between “harbouring” and “receipt”) in order for it to be “trafficking.”
My minor quibble was the idea that trafficking “involves long-distance transport across borders” in order to be considered trafficking.
And I agree that many South Korean prostitutes in South Korea and in other countries would fit the UN definition of being trafficked, while a great many seem not to.
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8:55 am on February 5th, 2010 2
The trafficking just outside Osan is about the same, maybe sliding down a little over the last year or two. However, it’s all filipinas now and if they bring back the Russians it might get a little interesting. What a shitehole.
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February 6th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
Many of them are starting to look very bad. Guess Korea isn’t the land of :milk and honey” like they were led to believe.
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12:01 pm on February 5th, 2010 3
The key here is this…
Will USFK, especially the historically-corrupt Osan Air Base, place bars with Filipinas off-limits?
…or will they say, “Oh, no, we can’t enforce Philippine law and we have no way to verify what country the clubs’ workers are from.”
Which is probably true…
…except they sure seem to have investigative and enforcement jurisdiction off-base when it comes to RUMORS of curfew violation or underage drinking.
Somebody should nuke the golf course from orbit.
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2:48 pm on February 5th, 2010 4
So, do the S-5 sections still have responsibility for checking the VD cards of the hookers in the bars? They used to.
USFK policy has always been to disaprove of prostitution, and there are DOD, USFK, and 2ID regulations against US military personnel using the services of prostitutes.
There are Korean laws against prostitution.
Almost every nation in the world has laws against prostitution.
Still got prostitutes everywhere.
Still got Servicemen visiting prostitutes everywhere they go.
It just makes a certain contingent of folks feel all warm and fuzzy when there are laws and rules they can point to to say they have done their part to stop trafficking and prostitution.
Not going to change human nature.
Not going to make prostitution go away.
Yes, we’ll see more Russian prostitutes, then when the finger gets pointed at the Russians, some other country will fill in the void.
Hell, Korea didn’t pass laws against kidnapping, slavery and indentured servitude until 1991, and those were the primary methods of getting Korean women into the bars, with the exception of the orphanages that sold girls into the clubs, and some that still do.
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February 6th, 2010 at 7:01 am
If you read Tim Norris’ book Seasons in the Kingdom he explains the club system back in the day quite well and basically many of these women working in the clubs are indentured servants brought from the country side:
http://rokdrop.com/2008/05/28/rok-drop-review-seasons-in-the-kingdom/
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3:58 pm on February 5th, 2010 5
Two points.
1. You won’t see Russian women replacing the Filipinas. The Russian speaking women you may see around are not here on entertainers visas. The Korean government had stopped issuing those types of visas for FSU women for some time now. That’s not to say there aren’t many FSU girls working in clubs in Korea. I hear there are many, mainly in Koreans only clubs in cities away from U.S. bases. In fact, some of the FSU women you may see around come to the G.I. villes as R&R on their few days off away from such places.
2. That brings me to this point. If the Philippines government thinks they are doing their nationals any favors by restricting their visa to only prevent them from working in establishments around military bases, then they don’t understand what goes on in Korea very well. I hear most girls, even the hard core juicies, are terrified of going to Korean only clubs. Or, as I suspect, the activists and politicians really do know, but understand that they can get more attention and self-promotion by pointing to the more visible activity around U.S. bases.
In third world countries, you will often find that one way to draw attention away from the fact they have kids working in back-alley sweat shops is to campaign and complain about the kids hustling trinkets on the corner.
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4:03 pm on February 5th, 2010 6
Lets address a (very) simple truth, shall we?
Prostitution IS a constant in the world. Always has been. Always will be. Not gonna ever stop some woman from renting her hole to some guy with the cash that she needs/wants.
Only one thing to do, as has been stated before. If non-korean women work in GI bars, then put it off limits.
This is way to easy a fix! No thinking involved.
Like during the old black market days. GI’s would spend 300.00 USD a week at the BX. Single people! Each week. For YEARS they “spoke” of ending the BM. Then one really bright person put a dollar limit on what could be spent. It didn’t go away BUT it was greatly reduced.
Russan women—Please. The Mob came last time and it will come again.
But my info IS admittedly dated back to 03.
People that declare war on prostitution are nieve.
POI: How much does a wife cost. Or an ex-wife. Marriage is a contract that no lawyer would allow a client to enter, if it were called something other than marriage. Compare the expense in money and emotion of the “two” professions
Opps—wife is coming—gota go!!!
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February 6th, 2010 at 3:16 am
“Only one thing to do, as has been stated before. If non-korean women work in GI bars, then put it off limits.”
It’s too logical a solution.
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February 6th, 2010 at 3:21 am
…(not that the bars near the USFK camps aren’t just a drop in the bucket of the multi-billion dollar sex industry in South Korea).
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8:03 pm on February 5th, 2010 7
O.K.
Repeat after me.
“Prostitution and human trafficking are separate issues. Prostitution and human trafficking are separate issues. Prostitution and human trafficking are separate issues.”
…and they relate much like nail clippers and terrorism. Some terrorists carry nail clippers. Not everyone who carries nail clippers is a terrorist.
Yet there is intentional confusion about the purpose of nail clippers to the point that nail clippers are Bad in some circles… and the original idea of nail clippers has been lost in the confusion…
…probably because it is easier to Assign Blame and Do Something about common nail clippers rather than discuss what would happen if one grabbed a couple of wine bottles off the cart and smashed them together.
Every time “prostitution” is brought up in a debate that centers around human trafficking, They win.
Knock it off.
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February 6th, 2010 at 3:18 am
“…and they relate much like nail clippers and terrorism. Some terrorists carry nail clippers. Not everyone who carries nail clippers is a terrorist.”
I don’t fly to the US anymore because I don’t want to find out the hard way that they can’t make the distinction.
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10:51 pm on February 5th, 2010 8
There’s another article in todays S&S, basically the S&S reporter refused to be banned from one of the meetings between the Army and Bar Owners. Sure enough, the bar owners were told they were doing a “Fantastic” job by USFK, how pathetic is that? Just proof that USFK supports the whole human trafficking rather than find solutions to mitigate the problem. No wonder USFK didn’t want the reporter in there, kudos to him/her for refusing to leave!
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3:03 am on February 6th, 2010 9
Why are the women from the Philippines and USFK being SOLELY blamed for a problem that is happening on Korean soil in Korean bars? Sounds like one party (uh, ROK?) is not taking its medicine.
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February 6th, 2010 at 11:08 am
This might be overly simplistic, but the ROK and PI governments both know what is going on. It is easier to blame those damn americans. The girls don’t matter to either government. They are only a source of income. Officers in the USFK allow it to happen. Why would they do that? A little kick back in cash here and there.
After all, why would american military officers care about anything that does not directly effect their careers.
You want to get something done in the military? Make it important to the officer ABOVE the one you are seeking to motivate. I wonder if the CIC would be concerned. Na, what was I thinking?
Glad I’m not in Korea now. It was SWEET back in the 80/90s.
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7:51 am on February 6th, 2010 10
Phillipinas won’t be replaced with girls from the FSU–because individuals with security clearances would have to report any contact with FSU individuals to their unit security manager. That is what caused the change from FSU girls to Phillipinas back in early ’00s. When bar owners were told that service members were going to be forced to report all contact or risk losing their clearances, thus their jobs, the FSU girls quickly dissappeared…
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February 6th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
You Can’t Handle The Truth,
“…individuals with security clearances would have to report any contact with FSU individuals to their unit security manager”
I hope you aren’t an Army or DA Civilian in a position where Soldiers might listen to that nonsense. You are wrong.
I would suggest prefacing something like that with “I heard but don’t know if it’s true that…” or “Does anyone know if…”.
I’m sorry to be so harsh, and this isn’t meant to be a personal attack, but the longer I’m in the Army, the more tired I get of people (mostly Senior NCOs) spreading rumor and their opinions as Army Regulations.
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February 6th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
To be fair, I probably should have said “Soldier, Sailor Airman or Marine leader or DoD Civilian”. I’m an Army Officer, so I probably have a tendency to be a bit Army-centric.
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February 6th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
To be fair, I wasn’t being specific–Osan is an Air Base with a large population of service members from all four services with the full range of security clearances. It is a requierement for all service members with higher level clearances to “have a responsibility to report, within 72 hours, to their local special security official all contacts: That are of a close, continuing personal association, characterized by ties of kinship, affection, or obligation with foreign nationals.
Report contact with known or suspected intelligence officers from any country. There may be other situations in which foreign
contact is likely and reportable. Some examples are:
Membership in professional organizations which have foreign national members. Attendance at seminars and conferences
with a worldwide interest and international attendees. Sponsorship of the entry or the presence of a foreign national in your household, e.g. exchange student, housecleaner, gardener, au pair, etc. Dating a foreign national (further reporting is required prior to cohabitation or marriage). This requirement easily applies to a large population of personnel at Osan.
AND IT IS A FACT this is what happened the first time round with the FSU girls.
You will hear people talk about myths like Russian mafia, Phillipinas are cheaper/easier to import etc.
Fact is the FSU girls were good for business and the FSU countries were excited about the intel opportunities being so closely associated with U.S. servicemen. Facts, not myths.
No need to apologize for being an Army Officer–just reinforces you need to listen to the NCOs more closely.
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February 6th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
he wasn’t apologizing for “being an officer”… i guess he should listen to the NCOs up to the point of “attention to detail” which you lack
February 6th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
airdefender wasn’t apologizing for “being an officer”… i guess we should listen to the NCOs up to the point of “attention to detail” i suppose because it sure is lacking here
February 6th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
OK, first you said “any contact” and now you change it to “close, continuing personal association, characterized by ties of kinship, affection, or obligation” and “suspected intelligence officers.” You also stated “individuals with security clearances” in your first post, which you changed to “higher level” in your second.
By changing your statements, you have proven your realized your were wrong. Unfortunately (for you), you are still about half wrong. As a Counterintelligence / HUMINT Officer (with a TS-SCI/SSBI/SI/TK/HCS/G clearance) and five and a half years experience in Korea, I would know. I’ve even worked with AFOSI not only in Korea, but Iraq and CONUS as well. It is obvious to me that you are able to copy and paste phrases from documents without the intelligence to really know what you are talking about.
Luckily, your sphere of influence as a junior Air Farce NCO SP is very small and I’m sure you have a USAF officer there to correct your nonsense. As for listening to NCOs, I was a Senior NCO in Air Defense and MI before I became an Officer, so I know what I’m talking about there as well.
Earlier I mentioned that what I wrote wasn’t meant to be a personal attack, but I can tell that with comments like “No need to apologize for being an Army officer”, your level of maturity hasn’t yet reached that level, so I’ve thrown in a few insults of my own to speak to you at the third-grade level you are used to having conversations at.
February 6th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
You Can’t Handle The Truth,
I am surprised you were able to cite parts of references and not come up with any that singled out contacts with people from FSU countries.
Foreign contact reporting, where it applies, refers to contact and relationships with ANY foreign national, not excluding Filipinos or even Koreans for that matter.
Common sense would tell you, especially when working overseas, that “where it applies” is situation and circumstance based, or you be reporting every casual encounter you had.
February 7th, 2010 at 12:04 am
JoeC,
You are correct. IAW DoD 5200.2-R “Any form of contact, intentional or otherwise, with individuals of ANY NATIONALITY” (emphasis mine) should be reported.
(I will put my citations of regulations in quotation marks; we can tell when You Can’t Handle The Truth is quoting something because his citations, unlike the portion of his posts that are in his own words, do not contain misspelled words that you and I learned in grade school.)
It goes on to list a specific set of circumstances that need to be reported, and having a drink with some hooker from a country that was a part of the USSR before she was born is not one of them. Basically, if you suspect that a foreign national contact was trying to collect on you, you report it. Even were someone to rent s juicy for the night, it still doesn’t meet the reporting criteria, although violating the UCMJ and leaving yourself susceptible to blackmail over sexual misconduct causes other clearance problems. The clearance issues are not a serious as you may think though. DSS leaves the UCMJ violation disposition to the commanders; when adjudicating a clearance, they are only concerned about a person’s trustworthiness and ability to keep classified information classified.
No one will lose their clearance over not reporting drunken contact with some Russian juicy-girl in a bar in Itaewon or Songtan, and anyone who says they will is a liar or stupid.
YCHTT’s point, that you have to report ANY contact and that the FSU women “dissappeared” (sic) because service members would lose their clearances for not reporting that contact, is crap.
10:27 pm on February 6th, 2010 11
There’s no reason to create an off-limits list.
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2:09 am on February 7th, 2010 12
@AD
“Foreign Connections. All foreign connections (friends,
relatives, and/or business connections) of subject and immediate family in the United States or abroad, except where such association was the direct result of subject’s official duties with the U.S. Government, shall be ascertained. Investigation shall be directed toward determining the significance of foreign connections of the part of
subject and the immediate family, particularly where the association is or has been with persons whose origin was within a country whose national interests are inimical to those of the United States.”
The letters OSI don’t establish much credibility–most of their personnel are cross/re-trained investigators with less than five years of actual experience. The average Air Force SF (not SP) E-4 that you negatively refered to has responded to more emergency situations and taken more subject/witness statements and gotten more case solves than an OSI agent.
In the early ’00s the Osan Security Forces commander was LtCol Mike Kifer. LtCol Kifer had a great relationship with the Songtan Bar Owners Association–of which many of the members have been the same people over the last 40 years. It was LtCol Kifer who established the requirements for no backpacks in the bars post-911 and it was LtCol Kifer who told the association that the service members were going to have problems explaining their contacts with FSU women–hence the change.
Before this occured I got one of these service men into my unit who married a FSU entertainer. And he lost his clearance because of not declaring the initial contact, followed up by not reporting his marriage to an FSU citizen.
You can obviously roll the dice with foreign contacts you make, but I don’t think you mean to say that you wouldn’t report FSU contact when that FSU is involved in an illegal/corrupt criminal enterprise and your contact was as a willing participant in that illegal/corrupt criminal enterprise.
We can argue over semantics, but the point is FSU girls as replacement for the Phillipinas is bad for the bars and the owners know that, even if service members don’t.
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February 7th, 2010 at 4:37 am
I hope an attitude of profiling and complacency hadn’t set in, only looking out for FSK agents.
I thought I would more likely encounter an agent of North Korea in the ville, since I can’t tell the difference between a North and South Korean.
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4:02 am on February 7th, 2010 13
Hmmm…
That wouldn’t be the same LtCol Mike Kifer with “a great relationship with the Songtan Bar Owners Association”…
…who just happened to serve on the Armed Forces Disciplinary Control Board which was in charge of putting those clubs off-limits?
The same LtCol Kifer with the hot Korean wife who just happened to have a close relationship with some of the scummiest club owners?
The same LtCol Kifer who, along with Col Kopp (and, later Col Dowling), were involved in payoffs from downtown clubs to insure that USFK’s anti-HT&P rhetoric had little to no effect in Songtan?
The same LtCol Kifer who was the commander of the same security forces squadron that refined the scam with Lt. Jason Davis?
It’s always a pleasure to remember the fine leadership of Osan Air Base.
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February 7th, 2010 at 7:27 am
Lt Davis was with the commander after Kifer, but nice try…and I agree on the worth of Dowling—a good thing happened when she retired a year after leaving Korea…
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5:40 am on February 7th, 2010 14
There were no juicy girls, or juicy bars in Tongduchon in the 1960’s. Also there were no Filipinas or Russian girls either in Tongduchon. Only Korean gals with an up to date VD card were allowed to work in the clubs. All payments were made in Korean won, and possession of the US dollar was a black market offense. Back then, the GI was king with his 500 won for a short time. Times have changed. If the Koreans in TDC think they have problems now, just wait until (if) Camp Casey is turned over to the ROK forces. No SOFA to protect the people. The ROK army will have it the way they want it and there won’t be any more “juicy girls”. It will go back to the way it was when Japan occupied Korea.
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8:07 am on February 7th, 2010 15
“Lt Davis was with the commander after Kifer, but nice try…”
There was no try.
This little protection racket didn’t just materialize the day after LtCol Kifer left.
It just went from a semi-friendly, mutually-helpful relationship under Col Kopp/LtCol Kifer (both with connected Korean wives) to one based more on extortion under LtCol Randall Richert and Col Dowling… with Lt. Davis acting as the frontman.
Lt. Davis just got a little too carried away.
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