What do you do to make money by hosting a major event?
South Korea's answer is: to engage in the industry.
On May 31, 2002, the World Cup jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan opened in Seoul, and in just one month, more than 300,000 foreign friends flocked to South Korea to "help" South Korea complete a "sex trade" of 24 trillion won.
This "achievement" shocked the South Koreans, because this figure was equivalent to 4% of South Korea's annual GDP at that time.
In the face of such an easy "good deal" to make money, the South Korean government is about to laugh, and the industry is becoming more and more yellow.
Everyone in the world knows that in Asia, Japan is a veritable "big country in the customs industry", so how did South Korea, which looks glamorous, surpass Japan, how did it become the "uncrowned king" of the industry?
1
Before 2017, there was a "backbone-level" check-in mecca in Seoul, South Korea, that is, "Cheongnyang-ri 588", which used to be the most famous "shopping spring street" in South Korea, and they witnessed the most "prosperous" era in South Korea.
Every night, the lights are bright, and in the connected rooms, there are several young ladies dressed in flowers, their eyes are dull and empty, but there is a little eagerness to look forward to the arrival of the "gold master"....
And most of the red light districts like Rice were left over from the Japanese invasion of Korea.
At that time, the Japanese colonizers not only brought economic and cultural exports to Korea, but also brought their own "special industries" - customs and customs, and through continuous social infiltration, many Korean people were influenced by this set of ideas.
Coupled with Japan's criminal "public prostitution system," the cancer of the industry has firmly taken root on the Korean Peninsula. Although South Korea openly abolished the "public prostitution system" after the Korean War, it turned a blind eye to the industry in private.
By the eighties and nineties, South Korea was at the peak of the industry. In terms of quantity, there are tens of thousands of pornographic establishments engaged in related industries, large and small, and here, industries that should not be seen can be operated generously.
It's hard to imagine that these young girls who scratch their heads in glass windows can "contribute" to more than $10 billion in transactions. At that time, South Korea's total annual agricultural production was only 13 billion yuan, and the sex industry accounted for about 4% of the entire GDP.
The proliferation of pornography in South Korea is undoubtedly inseparable from the inaction of the South Korean government, and even the promotion of its development.
Former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan, who was born in the army, was the initiator of this abnormal development.
In fact, as early as the era of Chun Doo-hwan's predecessor, Park Sung-hee, a large-scale peach industry has appeared in South Korea.
At that time, these young and beautiful, modernly dressed young women were collectively called "Miss Western" or "Miss Foreign", and their service targets were American GIs stationed in Korea at that time.
South Korea's famous "Itaewon" was formerly known as "Heterogeneous Hospital", and the so-called "heterogeneous" is a mixed-race child born of an accidental pregnancy. Later, the South Korean government felt that the name was not good, so it was renamed Itaewon.
In the early days of Chun Doo-hwan's rise to power, the domestic situation in South Korea was turbulent, and he knew that he was not in the right position by relying on an iron fist to suppress it, so in order to divert the public's attention, he began to advocate the so-called "3S policy".
The so-called "3S policy" refers to three industries that focus on entertainment and pastime - "screen", "sport" and "sex", which are movies, sports and pornography respectively.
In terms of films, the South Korean government has not only encouraged foreign films to enter the Korean market, but also relaxed restrictions on the censorship of domestic film content.
Since then, there has been a gradual proliferation of pornographic and violent content in Korean films; In terms of sports, South Korea has hosted the Asian Games, the Olympic Games, and large-scale sports events one after another, which has also diverted the excessively acute social contradictions in the country to a certain extent.
In terms of the development of the industry, Chun Doo-hwan has carried forward the "legacy" of his predecessors. During Chun Doo-hwan's administration, the service customers of women in the Korean customs industry have changed from American GIs to Korean men.
From that time on, the Korean industry began to grow considerably.
It wasn't until a fire in 2000 that the famous "Special Act on Sex Trafficking" in Korean history was burned.
2
In September 2000, a fire broke out at a place in Gunsan City, Jeollabuk-do, and the lives of five women trapped in it were in danger due to the intensity of the fire. However, after receiving the report, the local police department chose to ignore it!
This indifference led directly to the five women being burned alive.
Even more outrageous is the fact that the local South Korean police often take bribes from pimps. Sadly, at that time, in South Korea, bribes from practitioners and the accidental death of a sex girl were already commonplace in the industry.
After the incident was exposed, it aroused public indignation and protests from all walks of life in South Korea.
Some righteous politicians in South Korea are beginning to realize that the proliferation of the industry, while helping to boost the economy, has indeed become a cancer in South Korea, and it is time to clean it up.
In 2002, the Special Act on Sex Trafficking, which aims to protect women's rights and interests, was submitted to the National Assembly for consideration.
In 2004, South Korea's new president, Roh Moo-hyun, came to power, and after he came to power, he actively pushed for the passage of the special law on sex trafficking, which had been stalled for two years and passed the National Assembly, which strengthened the punishment mechanism for sex trafficking, and even criminalized participation in prostitution.
Among them, the organization operator will be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 100 million won; The pimp will be sentenced to up to 7 years in prison and a fine of 70 million won. Even ordinary prostitutes will spend a year in prison for prostitution.
In the month of the law alone, South Korean police arrested more than 1,600 people on suspicion of gray trading; In 2004, a number of "red light districts" in South Korea were banned in one year, and as many as 17,000 people were involved.
A series of measures taken by the South Korean government demonstrate Roh Moo-hyun's determination to eliminate the stubborn social diseases of South Korea and reform the economic and political environment of South Korea with the support of the people.
However, the Special Act on Sex Trafficking did not completely destroy the sex industry in South Korea, and the related gray industry, which was once unscrupulous, did not disappear after that, but moved into a more hidden underground mode.
After the disappearance of the original bars, glass houses and other pornographic places, many of those women not only did not change careers, but chose to "hide in the city" and reopened in residential areas to continue to usher in the jobs they were sent to.
From this point of view, South Korea's vigorous anti-pornography campaign has not been successful, and the reason for this is that South Korea's basic means of production are in the hands of the big chaebols.
And there is no doubt that women's bodies are also one of the means of production in their eyes.
3
We might as well put together three seemingly unrelated news that occurred after the large-scale anti-pornography crackdown in South Korea and analyze them together, so as to find out the root cause of the contradiction that after the anti-pornography crackdown in South Korea, it has become more and more yellow.
In May 2009, Roh Moo-hyun, the biggest contributor to the Special Law on Sex Trafficking, committed suicide by jumping off a cliff in Gimhae City.
Although Roh Moo-hyun is the "most trusted president" in the hearts of the South Korean people, he still cannot avoid being impeached when he was in office, and after stepping down, he was slandered and liquidated, and finally chose to commit suicide due to humiliation.
And this is related to the anti-corruption and anti-corruption during his reign, which offended the interests of South Korea's big chaebols. It can be seen that as long as you are in South Korea, whether you are in power or in the opposition, you can't escape their control.
In March 2009, Zhang Ziyan, a South Korean woman, hanged herself at her home.
After two years, a suicide note by Zhang Ziyan has sparked huge public opinion.
In the suicide note, Zhang Ziyan confessed that she was coerced by the boss of the agency to provide hundreds of sexual services to 31 male dignitaries in South Korea, including the business, entertainment industry, and media industry.
Combined with the anti-pornography campaign in South Korea, when the work of those pimps who were imprisoned and sold their bodies was banned, the women who had lost their footing did not show much joy and gratitude, but their eyes were full of confusion about the future, and crying and helplessness about the loss of their livelihoods.
I can't help but reflect, is it wrong to sweep pornography?
No, it is correct to sweep away pornography, but it is easy to sweep away pornography on the surface, cut off the chain of illegal income hidden underground in South Korea, and even ban the Korean chaebols who are hiding behind the scenes and manipulating everything.
Whether it is a low-level street girl in South Korea or a high-ranking star, the money and interest exchange they get from selling their bodies will eventually enter the pockets of the Korean chaebols like a hundred rivers entering the sea.
After most of the targeted loss of wealth, these Korean women still inevitably live in poverty at the bottom. Data shows that in 2020, the poverty rate among single women in South Korea reached 55.7%, more than one-fifth higher than the 34.5% of single men.
It is conceivable that in a social environment without family protection, the living conditions of Korean women can be described as poor. In addition, the employment situation in South Korea is severe, and the competition in the workplace is fierce, which has forced many women to end their careers early.
What will these women rely on to make ends meet? Many people have chosen to embark on the road of no return to the industry.
In 2022, there were more than one million women working in the domestic custom industry, which means that 1 in 10 young women between the ages of 20 and 40 are making a living from the sex trade.
Although it is impossible to gauge how many of those who are forced to enter the custom industry because they have lost their lives, it is foreseeable that as South Korea's future economic momentum is not optimistic, it is undoubtedly the ordinary Korean woman who will be most injured.
epilogue
Rather than saying that the proliferation of pornography in South Korea is a simple crime, it is better to say that it deeply reflects the root cause of social contradictions in South Korea. As long as it can't solve the problem of the grassroots people in South Korea. In particular, the problem of poverty among female nationals, no matter how many times they try to "sweep away pornography", they will only get the helpless result of "wildfires are inexhaustible, and the spring breeze blows and grows again".
Resources
"Class Contradictions and Social Divisions Behind Korean Women's Topics-Wang Xiaoling"
"Squid Game: Behind the popularity is the widening gap between the rich and the poor_Famous Critic__Tao Short House"
Women's Poverty and Poverty Alleviation Policies in South Korea_Lee Moon-sook
Research on Korean Women's Movement after World War II - Xu Xiao
"South Korea: Prostitutes are caught and fined and have to go to jail_Xinhua News Agency reporter__Zhang Jinfang"