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Monday, July 16, 2012

1953 Jul 21 - "Country Girls Lured into Prostitution"

This July 7, 1953 article from the South Korean newspaper Donga Ilbo describes a typical means by which innocent Korean girls were lured into prostitution. That is, they are promised a good job, put into debt, and then forced to pay back the debt by working as prostitutes.

When I was in South Korea in the navy in the late 1970s, the typical method was to put ads promising high-paying waitress jobs in cheap magazines. When girls showed up, they were given a furnished apartment to put them in high-interest debt, which their waitress salaries would never be able to pay off, which forced them into prostitution. At that time a person could not walk away from debt or declare personal bankruptcy.
Here is my translation of the article.
Country Girls Lured into Prostitution 
Go Ok-i (高玉伊), a 53-year-old woman who lives at No. 83 on 3rd Street in the Cho Ryang-dong area of  Hanmok City, was operating a comfort woman business for UN servicemen until she suspended operations because of financial difficulties. Then on the 3rd of this month, with the intention of reopenning her business, Ms. Go had her maid, Im Mi-ja (林미子), lure five virgins, including 15-year-old Gang Pil-yeon (姜必連) of Jinju City (at No. 888 in Tongbong-dong), to Busan with promises of getting them jobs in the 34th Military Hospital. 
Telling the girls that they would need to wear "high-class" clothes if they expected to be hired, Ms. Go gave each of the six girls an advance of 5,000 hwan worth of high-class clothing with the idea of putting them to work as comfort women. However, she was detected by police authorities prior to that, and on the 7th, Ms. Go and Ms. Im were undergoing intense questioning at the Investigation Section of the Busan Police Department.

2 comments:

  1. <Japanese translation of the Korean article of this post>

    田舎の少女を騙して接待業に

     市内チョヤン洞三街83番地に住む高玉伊(52)という女は国連軍相手の慰安婦業を経営してきたが、資金難から休業中であったところ、去る13日、慰安婦業を再開する目的で、自分の店の雇用人林ミジャ(19)に指示して、晋州市東ポンソ洞888番地の姜必連(15)嬢ほか5名の少女たちを「第三陸軍病院」に就職させてやると騙して釜山に連れて来て、就職するならば「高級服」を着なければならないとして前記6名にそれぞれ5000ファンほどの高級服を買い与えた後、慰安婦として従事させ営利を取って来たが、警察当局に探知され、前記高、林両人は去る7日、釜山警察署捜査係にて厳重なる取調べを受けた。


    (東亜日報 1953.7.21)



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  2. Korean have always cheated Korean girls to make money not only during the WW2 but now.
    https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/06/16/national/comfort-women-group-controversy/

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