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>Americans act as though Koreans were a conquered nation rather than a liberated people. Venereal disease widespread, the U.S. military instituted inspections for “entertaining girls.” In 1947, medical personnel examined 15,000 Korean women.
>After the 1953 Korea-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty, 18 new camptowns were created. They were virtually colonized space where Korean sovereignty was suspended. Sex work was a core part of the camptown economy. By 1958, there were an estimated 300,000 sex workers in a country with a population of 22 million. Originally built by Japanese colonizers, Itaewon neighborhood filled with brothels. GIs named it “Hooker Hill.”
>Korean officials created “special districts” for businesses catering to U.S. troops and off-limits to Koreans. U.S. doctors treated women with sexually transmitted diseases at detention centers given names such as “the monkey house.” In 1965, 85% of GIs surveyed reported having been with a prostitute. South Korean government documents show male officials strategizing to encourage GIs to spend their money on women in Korea rather than Japan. “They urged us to sell to the GI’s as ‘dollar-earning patriots,’” recounts former sex worker Aeran Kim. “Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military.”
>“The women were readily available,” a U.S. official at the Embassy in Seoul told me. “There was kind of a joke” where guys would take out a $20 bill and lick it and stick it to their forehead. They said that’s all it took to get a girl. Jeon moved to a camptown in 1956 as an 18-year-old war orphan. Within a few years, she became pregnant, but she gave up her son for adoption in the United States. In 2008, a U.S. soldier returned to find her. Jeon was surviving on public assistance. She said he should forget about her. “Women like me were the biggest sacrifice for my country’s alliance with the Americans,” she says. “Looking back, I think my body was not mine, but the U.S. military’s.”
