Surrounded by music and neon lights, they gathered nightly near a US military base in South Korea. Now, more than women who used to work as prostitutes outside the complex in Uijeongbu City, Gyeonggi Province, are seeking compensation from the Korean government. The former prostitutes, who are aging and poor, claim their county's authorities actively facilitated their work in a bid to keep American forces happy, while ignoring their own welfare.
Military base: More than women who used to work as prostitutes near a US military base in Uijeongbu City, South Korea, are seeking compensation from the Korean government. Above, Camp Stanley, east of the city. What I want is for the Korean government to recognize that this is a system that it created The pensioners said that although it was their own choice to work as prostitutes - unlike Japan's 'comfort women' - the government instituted a system of compulsory sexual health check-ups. This system - along with 'Western etiquette' courses and their desperate need for money - helped facilitate a prostitution culture that has left them even further in poverty in their old age, they said.
They added that the government welcomed their prostitution because it needed foreign currency and was worried in the s that Washington would pull its troops out of the country. Poverty-stricken: The former prostitutes, who are aging and poor, claim their county's authorities actively facilitated their work in a bid to keep American forces happy.
Above, former prostitute Cho Myung-ja, Anger: Cho pictured in old photographs on her bed in a shack says she served US military personnel at another US military garrison, Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, during the s and 70s. Kathy Moon of the Brookings Institution, an expert on prostitution in South Korea, added: 'In the s some Korean officials from the central government did go to these camp-towns.
Despite the women's claims of a blameworthy system, the sexual health clinics set up by the South Korean government replaced an unofficial network of often, poorly qualified doctors. Tearful: Kim Sook-ja, 70, cries whilst recalling her life as a prostitute serving personnel at Camp Humphreys.
