The enslavement of human beings, known as human trafficking, is a reality that none of us can afford to ignore. My own country, America, battles it every day. In Angeles City, Philippines, I entered the bars and searched for victims of sexual slavery for eight months.
Koreans believe in individual freedom and find slavery abhorrent. So would it surprise them to learn that the potential is there for slavery every day in their own cities? It most likely does exist. Consider this question: What happens when prostitution, an illegal industry, is tolerated by society? The answer is that over time the illicit becomes accepted by nearly everyone, excuses become lies that most decent people believe, and eventually ordinary citizens lose touch with what is really happening.
This is the situation today in Korea. I lived in Daegu. In my middle-class neighborhood, there were six businesses, all marked by multiple barber poles.
A "da bang" coffee shop, where women delivered coffee to clients and maybe sexual services as well, was close to my apartment. But the area that my friends and I focused on was Jagalmadang. From the beginning, it was strange. A world of its own, everything was hidden from the view of hundreds of passing cars. Over a few months, I walked around it, studying the boundaries and looking for insight. Apartment buildings formed several sides of the perimeter, and one thing become obvious: they had been modified so that the brothels were actually part of them.
According to a Korean social worker, while some women lived nearby, most stayed in the brothels. For these women, they simply left their rooms, walked downstairs and sat down in front of the windows. At the end of their shift, they went back upstairs. They never once had to step outside in order to go to work. Did the women have freedom of movement, or were they living there against their will?
