[Blog Post #1] Introducing our project

[Blog Post #1] Introducing our project

A. Group Members:

Our team members are all students of Seoul National University taking the same Advanced English classes. We have different majors but gathered as a team by our common interests in learning about sex workers in Korea. To introduce our members; Sung Yoon Park majoring in Social Studies Education, Hyejin Woo majoring in Social work and Sohyun Lee majoring in Architecture Engineering.

B. Topic: Stereotypes and labels of foreign sex workers in Korea

This semester (2015 fall), our Advanced English Culture and Society class is studying various subcultures in Korea and some stereotypes or labels that exist along. Of the many groups, our team will particularly focus on foreigner sex workers that work or used to work in Korea. We are interested in this particular subculture because of the lack of public access, owing to the industry being illegal and the negative labels upon the group. We hope that this project will reveal some misunderstood/unknown facts about the group and as well lighten stereotypes that affect the subculture members.

C. Common Stereotypes or Labels we might have:

⇨ A common image of a sex worker is a woman who has a nice figure and wears erotic clothing.

⇨ Sex workers had unfortunate childhoods. They suffered from poverty, and had no choice but to start working at an early age.

⇨ Sex workers probably did not grow up in a supportive family environment, and they may have been victims of domestic violence when they were young.

⇨ Sex workers received a low level of education, and cannot get other jobs because of it.

⇨ Sex workers are overly conscious of their looks, and probably would have done a plastic surgery.

⇨ Sex workers are extravagant. They spend a lot of money on makeup products and luxury clothing. They have no sense of economy, so they don’t save up any money.

⇨ Sex workers are ashamed of what they do for their living. They will not continue on with the work if they saved up enough money.

⇨ Sex workers cannot start a family. Most of them are not married because they cannot form a healthy relationship with one partner.

⇨ Sex workers have venereal diseases. The kind of work they do, and the unsanitary environment that they do it in, generally makes them unhealthy.

D. Our Plan 

We don't know foreign sex workers directly, so we think that we have to contact through foreign sex workers welfare centers. There are some centers in Korea, so we will contact them right after the 'Chu-seok'. We can see several phone numbers in this blog(http://ggholic.tistory.com/625). Because there are foreign counselors also, interviewing in English can be possible. After we make an appointment with one center, we will visit there in 2 weeks. 

E. Preliminary Research

1. Sex Industry in Korea (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5_TDiZ024A)

This video shows why so many girls step in prostitute. The most important reason in the vedio is the financial difficulties. Worst of all some students are doing prostitute for their tuition. There is no a total inspection research in Korea aiming female college women, It is believed that many female students are doing prostitute because of the overpriced tuition. We think things are not much different in foreign sex workers, because most of them come from developing countries such as Vietnam to make money. Furthermore, they would not be fully protected under the law because the prostitute is illegal in itself and a lot of foreign sex workers are illegal aliens. We thought prostitute can not be solved and it is just a their choice on their own initiative so far. However, as you can see in this video, prostitute is not just a personal problem but social problem. We have to handle it as a public agenda especially for foreign sex workers who haven't been considered.

2. Foreigner women prostitutes with fake ID are in full swing again

https://youtu.be/YUF9L80sUB8

This news report is about foreigner women who come to Korea with fake ID and illegal visas to work in the sex industry, and the police's effort to crack down the illegal businesses.

3. Who are they? (by Jason Lim)

(http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2011/06/137_88538.html) ;To access article #3 in Blog Entry #1 ("Who are they?"), you actually have to cut and paste the link into your browser, as clicking on the posted link will not take you there directly.

This is an opinion column of Korea Times, written by Jason Lim who is a Washington D.C. based political consultant. He is talking about how the sex business agenda in Korea is going in the wrong direction. The government always emphasizes the belief that all sex workers in Korea are held against their will, and forced to work. However the recent massive demonstration by the sex workers themselves made us acutely aware of the fact that they are just ordinary women around us, just taking on a different job. He is not an advocate of a certain political stance regarding prostitution in Korea, but he thinks that the policy debates about this subject must begin by looking at sex workers as individual human beings, not as imaginary creatures.