Meeting migrant women who are trafficked, sexually exploited in South Korea
By Joyce
Published: December 11, 2016
I work at a center that
is located in what is referred to as a camptown, a neighborhood that surrounds
a U.S. military base and caters to the U.S. servicemen of the base.
In camptowns there are
foreigner-only bars and clubs that are owned and operated by Korean nationals
who hire migrant women to entertain customers – U.S. soldiers, other
foreigners, and, as business wavers, Korean customers. There are also migrant
women who are sent to work in Korean clubs, other adult entertainment
establishments, massage parlors, and makeshift brothels across the country. The
trafficking of migrant women for purposes of sexual exploitation is widespread
in South Korea, and a significant number of migrant women in camptowns and
other establishments nationwide are victims of trafficking who have been
deceived, partially deceived, or even forced into working in the sex industry.
One of the center’s
objectives is to provide assistance to Korean and migrant women who face or
have faced sexual and labor exploitation, and my work at the center is focused
mainly on assisting migrant women who experience problems while living and
working in the camptowns. Sexual and/or labor exploitation, immigration status,
health issues, and concerns regarding children and single motherhood are among
the problems that commonly surface.
I believe we must work
toward our objective by providing women with the services and resources that
they need and by helping them to access spaces that feel physically and
emotionally safe. Having access to services, resources, safe space, and time
would allow survivors to work through their trauma and, if they choose, to seek
justice so that ultimately they can find safe working opportunities in South
Korea during or after their recovery.
Working toward this
objective is difficult because working on issues of gender-based violence and
inequality is challenging to say the least. Such challenges aside, however, I
have often become frustrated by huge limitations and problems we face in this
field of work.
Migrant women victims are deported instead of being
protected
 |
| The workers in businesses that specialize in serving foreigners are migrant women on E-6-2 visas. The customers are mainly American military personnel, but other foreign workers and Korean men also visit these clubs. Ⓒ Joyce |
One problem that I have
noticed while working at the center is the weakness of identifying victims and
survivors at the government organization (GO) level.
We have seen cases where
migrant women were sent to immigration detention centers and soon thereafter
simply deported without being provided information and resources. Among those
cases, one migrant woman even requested to speak with a human rights counselor
but instead got deported shortly afterward. The woman’s deportation led to
great complications in taking legal action against those who exploited and
abused her, and she ultimately decided not to pursue prosecution. Moreover, we have also
heard, through other clients, of situations in which migrant women reported
their club owner for exploitation but, similarly, got deported after the police
raided the establishment.
Government organization
employees, therefore, may be the first to have contact with a migrant woman
reaching out for assistance. However, they are not appropriately identifying
victims and need more training and education on issues of trafficking and
gender-based violence.
In the two situations
above, I question why these women were deported without referral to an appropriate
NGO or counseling center. If GO units could properly identify victims of
exploitation and trafficking and refer them to NGOs for further counseling,
there would be more survivors who access the means to recover and seek justice.
The “4 Ps” – protection,
prosecution, prevention, partnership – widely discussed in trafficking survivor
support methods were not achieved at all.
In the cases above, the
migrant women were detained, criminalized, blacklisted, and deported. Here,
only the “3 Ds” of victim mis-protection – detention, deportation,
disempowerment – were applied.
Why it is strikingly difficult to report, prosecute sex
trafficking
The second serious
problem in survivor support is the failure to prosecute, convict, and
adequately punish. In too many cases perpetrators slip away unscathed because
of a lack of evidence. Testimony from the migrant women themselves and
co-worker witnesses do not suffice, yet women typically do not have enough
evidence to satisfy the courts.
South Korea has
continued to receive a Tier 1 rating, the best possible rating, since the 2002
U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report and also last year
ratified the Palermo Protocol to prevent, suppress, and punish human
trafficking. Still, however, South Korea has painfully low prosecution and
conviction rates.
Perpetrators who are
caught and punished, further, can often get away with paying fines before
continuing on with their businesses of exploiting women. The Labor Board, for
example, can order a club owner or promoter to pay employees their withheld
wages, yet who would opt to pay those wages back when they can simply pay a
cheaper penalty instead?
 |
| A sign hanging in a business that sells sex to foreigners. Despite its promise, when migrant women workers leave this kind of business, their lives become difficult and dangerous, especially if they are unregistered. Ⓒ Joyce |
Temporary visas should be
issued to migrant women who escape from sexual exploitation
The third serious
problem falls in the category of protection, one of the “4 Ps.” An overwhelming
majority of migrant women who have come to the center for assistance are women
who decided to leave their workplaces because of some form of sexual and labor
exploitation and/or declining health. For E-6 entertainment visa holders who
work at clubs, there are few options. Women who do not want to perform
sexualized labor at the club can either follow orders against their will or
refuse and consequently mistreated – harassment, verbal abuse, reduced
paycheck, or “lock down,” meaning they cannot leave the house outside of work
hours, etc. The other option is to leave.
By leaving their places
of work, however, migrant women face safety risks, and in many cases their
family members in their home countries also may be put in a dangerous
situation. In South Korea a woman’s club owner, promoter, boss, and their
friends and business partners will likely search for her, and the recruiters in
the home country will be alerted and begin to harass or threaten the woman’s
family members.
By leaving the club, E-6
entertainment visa holders also lose their visa status in South Korea. Without
a visa, a migrant woman has no right to reside or work in Korea and must hide
from not only their former club owners but also immigration authorities. Having
to hide on a daily basis can make a person feel highly insecure and raise
anxiety levels, taking a toll on one’s mental and physical health.
While there currently is
a “miscellaneous visa” that survivors of trafficking can obtain, it can be
obtained only by undergoing the legal process of seeking prosecution. That is,
the visa is only available to one who has filed a lawsuit. While our center
provides legal services so that clients may take legal action against their
traffickers, we know that pursuing a lawsuit can be a lengthy, re-traumatizing
experience for clients.
Instead there needs to
be a new temporary visa system available to all migrant women who run away from
the sexually exploitative working conditions that their managers and club
owners – with the approval of South Korean governmental organizations – subject
them to. The temporary visa would allow migrant women time to recover from
their harmful experiences and also work. For those such as E-6 visa holders who
have entered South Korea on a working visa, the temporary visa should allow
them to work for at least two years, the maximum amount of time an E-6 visa is
valid, and the work period should start after the initial recovery
process has begun and the survivor feels read to start working.
Lack of migrant women’s
protection in the form of temporary visa status is highly limiting for both
survivors and service providers. If a temporary visa system is not available to
migrant woman survivors, they cannot reach out for assistance and NGO and
GO-run victim-survivor service and protection programs simply cannot function
to their fullest. It is impossible to recover and live a safe, healthful life
as an undocumented migrant in South Korea.
The lack of rehabilitation, employment programs with
interpretation and psychological counseling services
 |
A foreigner-only business
in a military camptown. ⒸIlda
|
The last large
limitation lies in what is commonly referred to in the anti-trafficking field
as rehabilitation and reintegration. South Korean social welfare should create
programs that assist migrant women survivors of trafficking to recover from
trauma and enter Korean society, even if it is for a temporary period. However,
South Korea does not yet have recovery programs for migrant women who are
dealing with the aftermath of sexual and labor exploitation.
It is difficult to
access multi-lingual and multi-cultural direct psychological counseling that
can assist migrant women work through the emotional and psychological effects
of their trauma. Likewise, there are no employment training or placement
programs that migrant women can rely on to find work, which many migrant women
must prioritize over their own health and safety. The creation of a temporary
visa system and development of job training and placement would need to go hand
in hand.
The center is always
making efforts to encourage migrant women to tell their own stories, listen to
and advocate for migrant women, create programs that can ultimately facilitate
the building of community, and encourage conscious dialogue. This work, I
personally believe, is our center’s most important, valuable, and difficult
work.
However, I also
recognize our work on the ground cannot be successful because systematic and
policy changes need to occur in order to address the huge obstacles I mention
above. The specific details and examples of the obstacles surrounding the
failure to identify, prosecute, and protect and the inability to assist with
meaningful rehabilitation and reintegration are endless.
The government should take an interest in the lives of
survivors of trafficking
It is clear that there
needs to be a much higher level of cooperation among survivors and NGOs, and
GOs in South Korea. Much of the time, however, it seems GOs are not interested
in listening to survivors and NGOs working on the ground, and in many cases it
is clear everyone has different perspectives.
I once recently
participated in conference on enhancing victim-centered approaches to
trafficking, and one GO official from another country asked me why our center
does not forward perpetrator names as intelligence and does not report undocumented
migrant women to immigration authorities. It is very simple. We do not ever
take any action that has the potential to harm clients.
Despite the daunting
work and dialogue that needs to continue to be done, my hope is that those
involved in anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation work at the NGO and GO
levels keep survivors at the center of all discussion, action, and change.
*Original Article: http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7694
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