When Korea became a developed country, its women shied away from difficult and dangerous jobs. This paved the way for the entry of foreigners in its entertainment industry.
The Republic of Korea (South Korea) is another country that was shamed by the US State Department Trafficking in Persons (TIP) reports. In the 2001 TIP report, the US says that “while South Korea is a leader in the region on human rights and democracy,” the government was doing little to combat trafficking in persons.
Women from the Philippines and Russia, many of whom were working in nightclubs and bars outside US military facilities in Korea, became the focus of concern. The US has had a large presence of military troops in Korea since the Korean War in 1950. Nongovernment organizations, the media, and the academe had done significant research and had written about Filipino and Russian trafficking victims.
As Korea shifted from a developing to a developed country, Korean women shied away from difficult and dangerous jobs. This meant economic opportunities for foreigners in Korea’s entertainment industry.
June Lee, an independent consultant of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in a 2002 study on trafficking in Korea, says “foreigners were brought into South Korea since they were essential to the survival of the military camp town business, which had been suffering from a declining supply of South Korea women.”
In 1994, Korea created its E-6 or entertainer visa. It was intended to give singers, dancers, and musicians from other countries the opportunity to work in Korea’s entertainment industry. Since then, women from the Philippines, Russia, and Eastern European countries have made up the majority of holders of Korean entertainer visas.
Lee says most foreign women working in Korea’s sex industry entered Korea with E-6 visas or tourist visas. Some women renew their visas while others overstay. There are also reports of “falsified travel documents and marriage certificates to bring in foreign women who end up working in bars.”
Citing official estimates, Lee says at least “5,000 women could have been trafficked into South Korea for the sex industry” and “there is reason to believe that the actual number may be much higher.”
“Filipinas often represent the most extreme cases of sexual exploitation, as they are specifically targeted for coercion in areas near military bases due to their English language skills,” she adds. “Filipinos speak much better English than most Korean women living near US military bases, and are indeed aliens in a foreign land, making them much easier to control and exploit than local Koreans.”
In response to the TIP reports, Korea took several steps in an effort to curb trafficking. One of the key measures was its policy to reduce E-6 visas.
Park Kyu-Beom, First Secretary of the Korean embassy in Manila, says that starting in 2003, they stopped issuing E-6 visas to dancers bound for clubs and bars near US facilities in Korea. This was in response, he says, to cases of trafficking of Russian and Filipino women. Although Korea now prohibits “dancing girls in clubs,” Park says it still issues E-6 visas to singers and musicians, most of whom work at “army clubs.”
As a result, Park says Korea has been able to significantly reduce trafficking of Filipino women. However, two women interviewed by NEWSBREAK show that restricting dancers isn’t enough; singers with entertainer visas are also being victimized.
Diverted Problem
Carmelita Nuqui, executive director of the Development Action for Women Network (DAWN), claims that trafficking has even increased and that Japan’s new restrictions on Filipino entertainers may have diverted the problem to Korea. She cites the increase in E-6 visas issued by Korea in recent years.
Based on data from the Korean embassy in Manila, 947 E-6 visas were issued to Filipinos in 2002. In 2003, after Korea stopped issuing E-6 visas to dancers, the number of E-6 visas rose to 1,397. In 2004, it went up to 2,248, and in 2005, it reached a new high of 2,350. It declined only in 2006 with 1,800 E-6 visas.
Nuqui and Fr. Edwin Corros of the Catholic Church’s Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) visited Korea in August 2005 and met many Filipinas working as hostesses in clubs near the US bases. They say there were 3,000-4,000 Filipino entertainers working in the periphery of US bases in Korea.
“In one club, the women working there said they got paid US$200-250 per month, often not on time. They said that on the upper floors of some clubs, there are areas where women are brought for sexual services. Their other problems included getting pregnant and having children with their American customers/boyfriends,” Nuqui and Corro say in their joint report after their visit.
Nuqui met a Filipino runaway at the Pastoral Center for Filipino Migrants in Seoul who fled the club since she was asked to go out with customers. “She trained in the Philippines as a singer and signed a contract as a singer in Korea. But in the club where she worked, she was made to wear sexy outfits and perform as one of the ‘dinky girls’ in a nightclub located near the US military bases. She and the other girls were also made to sell drinks to their customers or they risk not getting their salary,” Nuqui says.
Nuqui and Corros say they were told by the Philippine labor attache that “80 percent of women working in the clubs went to Korea through escort services.”
An entertainment promoter discloses that even if the Korean embassy reduces the number of visas it issues, this won’t stop the outflow since many Korea-bound entertainers leave through the escort service at the country’s airports. He says the pay-offs range from P5,000-P15,000 per worker.
Lee says in her study that “a conservative estimate would indicate that hundreds of women come to South Korea every month to be used in the sex industry.”
Park acknowledges that there are at least 15,000 Filipinos working in Korea illegally, but he says most of them are in factories, not in nightclubs.
Read more about this and other issues related to human trafficking in Asia in Newsbreak’s special issue. For orders and inquiries regarding the special issue, email editorial@newsbreak.com.ph and ads@newsbreak.com.ph or call (632) 687-5523 or (632) 687-5525
