[Opinion] Thoughts on the Sex-trade Special Law

During the weekend, I went to Jeju Island to attend at an academic event. A homecoming event was being held for the members of the Association of People from Jeju Island residing in the Kansai area of Japan. There were about 200 Japan-residing Koreans in the hotel I was staying in, and one could easily find Japanese-speaking people in the lobby or in the elevator. When the issue of the sex-trade law came up at the dinner table, some half-joked that “Jeju Island is faced with another problem.” This is referring to the expectation that the number of Japanese tourists will decrease greatly due to the sex-trade special law. If Japanese tourists stop coming, the tourism industry of Jeju Island will have much to be concerned about.

When I returned home, the 9 p.m. news was broadcasting a demonstration of women working in the sex-trade business. The protesters demanded that the government postpone the prostitution crackdown until 2007, and allow them to plan another way of living. In one interview, a woman boldly said that since she had been operating this business for a living, what should she do now.

I regularly see demonstrations, but I thought this was a peculiar one. The fact that prostitutes were revealing to the public that: “Yes, I am a prostitute,” and that they were boldly showing themselves on television news broadcasted to the whole nation made me think so.

There is an overflow of articles on the internet related to the Special Law: “Police hand out reward money for reporting prostitution”; “Sex customer in his twenties reports prostitution to the police out of anger”; “Sex-trade in residential areas and college dormitories”; ‘Representatives of red-light districts throughout Korea to gather at Yeoido on the seventh” are just a few of the articles showing what has been happening because of the enforcement of this law.

In order to successfully mount a reform in politics, the social and economic foundation should be strong. Reforming politics is difficult, especially at a time when economic circumstances are bad. Popular feelings that were delivered to the political arena during Chuseok show that the economy cannot get any worse and that the government’s approval ratings are terribly low. The government is bringing out progressive reform policies on a weakened social and economic foundation. Reform policies generally do not succeed in gaining mass support, so at a time when popular feelings are unstable due to poor economic conditions, reform will only bring forth discontentment. This is the dilemma that the government is currently faced with.

Lee Soo-hoon, Guest Editorial Writer, Professor of International Politics and Economics at Kyungnam University, leesh@kyungnam.ac.kr