The “Field Exploration of Dongducheon STD Management Center x Gijichon Bbaebbeol” program
By Park Ju-yeon
Published June 7, 2026
Translated by Marilyn Hook
At the foot of Mount Soyo in Dongducheon,
Gyeonggi Province, there is a neglected two-story building surrounded by a
fence. Now crumbling into ruins, it was the site of a Sexually-transmitted Disease
(STD) Management Center for a gijichon [red-light district near a U.S.
military base] from 1973 to 1996. It is
a place of state violence, where women who serviced members of the US military
were required to undergo examinations for STDs, and those who couldn’t produce
an examination certificate or were diagnosed with an STD were forcefully
admitted and confined under the pretext of treatment.
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| The former STD Management Center in Dongducheon, photographed on May 23, 2026, during the “Field Exploration of Dongducheon STD Management Center x Gijichon Bbaebbeol” program jointly led by Durebang, the Institute for Korean Historical Studies, and the Anti-Prostitution Human Rights Action E-Loom. (c) Ilda |
The city of Dongducheon is trying to demolish this building and turn the area into a tourist attraction. However, women’s organization, academics, and the international community oppose the plan, arguing that we should not destroy a historic site where serious violations of human rights were carried out against women. The argument is that the site must be preserved to prevent tragic memories from being forgotten and to stop attempts to distort history or deny the facts of the past.
The “Committee for Joint Action to Prevent
Demolition of Dongducheon’s Former STD Management Center,” launched on August
12, 2024, is demanding that [what was colloquially known as] a 'Test-Failer
Detention Center,’ a site of human rights abuses against women involved in sex
work in a former gijichon, not be demolished but instead utilized as an
'International Human Rights and Peace Memorial Hall.'
What value does preserving the traces of the
former STD Management Center hold for our society today? On May 23, I took part
in a meaningful field trip meant to explore this question. It was the “Field
Exploration of Dongducheon STD Management Center x Gijichon Bbaebbeol”
program jointly led by Durebang, the Institute for Korean Historical Studies,
and the Anti-Prostitution Human Rights Action E-Loom.
This trip was “aiming for the dismantling of the
sex trade industry in Korea,” while at the same time “intending to use feminist
language to raise critical questions about the all-too-common and accepted
grammar of the erasure of sex trafficking districts, in which they are wiped
out by military policy, tourism policy, and urban redevelopment.”
A place of state violence where women’s bodies
were used as a means of acquiring foreign currency
A legacy of modern history that must not be
destroyed but turned into a place of remembrance dedicated to peace and human
rights
We visited not only the former STD Management
Center at the foot of Mount Soyo but also the neighborhood of Bosan-dong, the
cemetery in Sangpae-dong, Teokgeori Village, and Bbaebbeol Village; afterwards,
we had a debriefing near Uijeongbu Station.
In operation from 1973 to 1996, the STD
Management Center was a place where humans rights violations against gijichon
women such as mandatory testing, forced confinement, and imprisonment under the
pretext of treatment were perpetrated; it was sometimes called the ‘Test-Failer
Detention Center’ or ‘Monkey House.’ (Related [Korean-language] article: “State
Encouraged Sex Trafficking to American Military”)
Lee Ji-wan, an activist with the Institute for
Korean Historical Studies, explained its background by saying, “This place is
stark proof of state violence that used women’s bodies as a means to acquire
foreign currency.”
According to Ms. Lee, “When the reduction of
U.S. forces in Korea was pushed forward under the 1969 Nixon Doctrine, the Park
Chung-hee regime, feeling a crisis, launched a large-scale ‘gijichon purification
campaign’ to maintain the U.S. military presence,” and “began to manage
sexually transmitted diseases among women working in places designated as ‘U.S.
military comfort facilities,’” and as a result, “women in gijichon were
forced to undergo a medical examination twice a week.”
“Women were required to wear name tags or health
certificates on their chests, and some women who were forcibly detained even
died from overdoses of penicillin. At the time, if a U.S. serviceman simply
pointed to the place where he had contracted an STD, the police would raid it
and drag the women here, without a proper investigation.”
Ms. Lee also pointed out that “the STD
Management Center building is a place that shows that the Korean government
went far beyond ‘turning a blind eye to sex trafficking’ and actively
mobilized, managed, and exploited women’s sexuality as a tool.”
 |
| The Committee for Joint Action to Prevent Demolition of Dongducheon’s Former STD Management Center was on the 634th day of a tent sit-in during our visit. (c) Ilda |
Near the center building, the Committee for Joint Action to Prevent Demolition of Dongducheon’s Former STD Management Center is staging a tent sit-in. The day of our visit was the 634th day of the sit-in. The tour group looked around the area while listening to explanations from Choi Hee-shin, chair of the committee’s executive team. According to Ms. Choi, the center sits on a two-acre parcel of land, and the building itself has two stories with about 3,600 square feet of floor space each. Although the interior cannot be entered currently, it is said to have had treatment rooms and a cafeteria on the first floor, and seven hospitalization rooms, with iron bars on the windows to prevent escape, on the second floor. Each hospitalization room could accommodate 20 people, making the center’s total capacity 140 people.
Dongducheon city is purchasing the site and
pushing for demolition under the pretext of expanding the Mount Soyo tourist
area. Ms. Choi strongly argued, “This building should not be torn down;
instead, it must be remodeled into the Republic of Korea Peace and Women’s
Human Rights Museum and preserved as a space that testifies to painful
history.”
The murder of Yun Geum-i: a case of women's
rights being overshadowed by nationalism
The tour group next headed to Bosan-dong, the
area in front of the main gate of Camp Casey, the largest U.S. military base in
Dongducheon. During the heyday of the gijichon from the 1960s to the
1980s, it was a zone where dollars and military power intersected, to the
extent that it was said that 80% of Dongducheon’s tax revenue came from
Bosan-dong. As its economy grew by catering to U.S. soldiers, women flowed into
this area to make a living. The state sometimes called them
"patriots" (for earning dollars), but at the same time, it controlled
them by branding them as "gijichon women."
In addition, Bosan-dong is the place where serviceman
Kenneth Markle sexually assaulted and murdered Yun Geum-i on October 28, 1992,
a case that shocked the world. This incident, after which Ms. Yun’s body was
found horribly mutilated, sparked public outrage over crimes committed by U.S.
soldiers and led to a sovereignty restoration movement that demanded the
revision of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) regarding the handling of
crimes committed by U.S. forces in Korea.
 |
| Institute for Korean Historical Studies activist Choi Wu-yeong in Bosan-dong, discussing the 1992 murder of Yun Geum-i by Private Kenneth Markle. (c) Ilda |
Choi Wu-yeong, an activist with the Institute for Korean Historical Studies, explained, “Civil society groups formed the ‘Joint Committee for Action Regarding the Murder of Ms. Yun Geum-i by U.S. Forces in Korea[1],’ which organized hundreds to nearly a thousand spectators for every part of the trial and held rallies at Seoul Station every Wednesday.” Thanks to its 18-month struggle, Kenneth Markle was arrested, charged, and found guilty.
However, from a feminist perspective, the manner
in which this case was publicized had significant limitations. Ms. Choi pointed
out that “the incident was reduced solely to a matter of ‘American crimes
against Koreans’ or ‘national pride,’ so the reality of the routine
perpetration of human rights violations and sexual violence against women
within the base towns was not properly captured.”
“Women in gijichon routinely suffered
exploitation and violence not only from Americans but also from club owners and
local men, yet this aspect was not properly discussed. It was a paradoxical situation,
in which a woman who was not recognized as a member of society while she was
alive was used as a symbol of ‘national sovereignty’ only after meeting a
horrific death.”
Ms. Choi emphasized that the question of how to
remember the Yun Geum-i case is intertwined with the questions of how to view
the gijichon system formed under the U.S. military presence and how to recover
the existence of women who for a long time were pushed to the margins inside it.
 |
| The site of the Sangpae-dong public cemetery. The graves have been relocated and the land is being converted into a park. (c) Ilda |
Deaths exhumed and erased: the Sangpae-dong
cemetery and Gwangam-dong’s Teokgeori Village
It is said that the public cemetery located in
Sangpae-dong, Dongducheon, was filled with the graves of women from gijichon
who died in the 1960s and 1970s without even leaving their names behind. These
graves, which were marked only by wooden logs inscribed with numbers instead of
names, were all exhumed and moved to a memorial park in Gyeongju, almost 200
miles away, in the early 2020s as part of a park construction project.
The remains are scheduled to be preserved for 10
years before being completely destroyed, yet the local government does not even
have records regarding this cemetery of gijichon women who were
unclaimed by family or friends. Their very existence is being completely erased
according to the logic of capital and development.
At Teokgeori Village in Gwangam-dong (in front
of Camp Hovey), which we visited next, there was a tombstone still remaining.
It was for the grave of “Soon Ja Reynolds,” who passed away in 1971. The
inscription reads [in English], “Soon Ja Reynolds. Died 7 Feb. 1971. My love
rest in peace and think of me for I am thinking of you forever and our hearts
are joined together.” We laid flowers next to the grave of Park Soon-Ja[2],
which is situated on a hillside overlooking the U.S. military base.
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| The grave of Park Soon-ja, in Teokgeori Village, overlooks a U.S. military base. (c) Ilda |
Uijeongbu’s Bbaebbeol Village and Durebang, and
shelter for “sisters”
The final stop on the field trip was Bbaebbeol
Village in Gosan-dong, Uijeongbu. Located near Camp Stanley, this area was
named “Bbaebbeol” due to the abundance of pear trees, but the women of the gijichon
attributed to the name a second, self-deprecating origin: “Once you set foot
here, there is no escape.” (Related [Korean-language] article: ‘Goblins
Live in the Base Town’: Stories of Particular Deaths)
Durebang (also known in English as “My Sister’s
Place”) is a community established in 1986 by Moon Hye-rim for the women of
this area, who were once virtually cut off from the outside world. Ms. Moon, who
was born Harriet Fay Pinchbeck and passed away in 2022, was an American who,
driven by the thought, “I, at least, will listen to these women’s stories,”
created Durebang as a refuge for women from gijichon.
Our exploration of Bbaebbeol Village started
from Durebang’s former headquarters. Initially a public health center building
where STD screenings were conducted, the place was transformed into a space of
peace and healing after Durebang leased it. This building is the only gijichon
STD health center in the country whose original form has been preserved.
However, the city of Uijeongbu recently issued an eviction notice to Durebang
as part of the ‘Saeddeul Village Project,’ an urban regeneration effort, and
Durebang had no choice but to leave the space.
 |
| The former STD health center building that Durebang used as a counseling center and shelter for gijichon women; the building is now abandoned with a banner hanging that reads, "Precise safety inspection in progress for aging building safety appraisal." (c) Ilda |
Jeong Kang-shil, an activist with Durebang, shared her experiences of working with gijichon women: “In the 1980s, Durebang operated a self-sufficient business selling organic carrots and bread made from domestic wheat, and opened playrooms and study rooms to care for neglected mixed-race children. Also, for women suffering from drug addiction and violence who could not even manage to eat a single meal a day, we would provide daily communal meals to find out how they were doing. It was a method of checking on their well-being through meals.”
Now, this historical site of the women of the gijichon
and their allies is also in danger of disappearing. Activists from Durebang
report that the ‘Durebang Sisters’ [women helped by the organization] wish for
the space to preserved, with one of them stating, “This space is a history that
future generations must know about and a history that must not be repeated.”
A movement against the erasure of history, of proof,
and of responsibility
At the meeting held after the field trip, the
participants gathered along with activists from E-Loom, Durebang, and the
Institute for Korean Historical Studies to discuss how to remember history that
is being erased and how to intervene in that erasure.
Ki-yong, an activist with the Anti-Prostitution
Human Rights Action E-Loom, discussed the process of redevelopment and erasure
taking place in urban sex trafficking hubs such as Cheongnyangni and Itaewon. She
spoke about the powerlessness felt by those who were being pushed out, unable
to even leave behind a single signpost, in the face of massive capital and
redevelopment. Regarding Itaewon specifically, she said that while the area has
a history as a gijichon catering to U.S. soldiers and other foreigners,
now only small sex industry establishments remain—many of them populated by
transgender individuals—and even these places continue to be driven out due to
redevelopment.
The activists at the meeting also emphasized
that “to remember a space in a feminist way is not to simply preserve the past
but to reveal its structures and resist erasure.”
 |
| Parts of Bbaebbeol Village have already fallen into ruin. (c) Ilda |
Kim Eun-jin, the director of Durebang, emphasized that “gijichon prostitution is not a thing of the past, but a structure of exploitation that is being repeated in the same way through migrant women today.” She also criticized the fact that, despite the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in 2022 acknowledging that [the government’s encouragement of] sex trafficking in the gijichon constituted state violence, “the enactment of a special law for proper truth-finding and restoration of honor for the victims has still not passed the threshold of the National Assembly.”
In addition, one of the participants in the
field trip expressed the opinion that, while observing the spaces facing
demolition, “citizens and activists must become the bereaved families of these
women who have no blood relatives, and carry on a memorial movement.”
Director Kim said, “These days, we speak of
dismantling the sex trade industry. This is clearly an important task and an
area that many feminist movements have long fought for. However, what we must
consider together at this moment is the method of dismantling and the memories
created in that process.” She also had the following parting words:
“In contemporary Korean society, prostitution
hubs and gijichon often disappear due to redevelopment. This process is
justified in the name of environmental improvement, urban development, and a
safe society. Consequently, those spaces cease to exist. What is erased in this
process is not merely the space itself. The history of the women who lived
there, the violence inflicted by the state and society, and the responsibility
we must bear vanish along with it. Within a clean and organized city, we end up
living as if nothing had ever happened.”
*Original article: https://www.ildaro.com/10472
[1] Translator’s note: This is a literal translation of the
organization’s Korean name; from checking other sources, it appears that the official
English name may have been the “National Campaign for the Eradication of Crime
by U.S. Troops in Korea.”
[2] Translator’s note: According to this Korean-language
article, there is supposedly a Korean inscription, “Park Soon-ja, please
don’t go,” lower down on the tombstone, though it is not visible now.
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