An annual U.S. report on human trafficking placed South Korea in the ``Tier 1'' group fully complying with the minimum standards to fight trafficking. The country maintained the status for the sixth consecutive year in 2007. However, North Korea has remained in ``Tier 3'' since 2003 as it continues to be a source country for men, women and children trafficked for commercial and sexual exploitation.
Despite its well-recognized efforts against human trafficking, South Korea cannot but feel ashamed of its sexual exploitation conditions. The ``Trafficking in Persons Report,'' released Monday by the State Department, cited the country as a source for the trafficking of women and girls internally and to the United States, Japan and other states for the purpose of prostitution. The report says women from Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China, the Philippines, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries are trafficked here for South Korean men.
What's more shocking is that South Korean men are a significant source of demand for child sex tourism in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands. The report points out that local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) cite a growing concern over South Korean men traveling to China, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia to engage in sex with children. It notes that although South Korea has a law with extraterritorial application that allows the prosecution of its citizens for sexually exploiting children during their overseas travel, no one has been prosecuted under the law.
The report also carried a photograph of a South Korean roadside billboard advertising an ``international marriage specialist'' promising Vietnamese brides who will not run away. It said the ad shows that women from less developed nations are presented as commodities. According to the report, a growing number of foreign victims were trafficked to South Korea for sexual or labor exploitation through brokered international marriages. It is regrettable that the government has made little progress in cracking down on exploitative marriage brokers.
We have to look back at a national campaign against the sex trade and human trafficking for sexual purposes. In 2004, the government and law enforcement authorities declared a war on prostitution by enforcing a special law on prohibiting the sex trade. They have publicized that the country has made significant progress in the fight, although the sex trade became more clandestine and went underground. More sex workers go abroad to escape the crackdown, while others engage in prostitution in bars and other entertainment facilities, instead of brothels. With the help of the Internet, the sex trade has increasingly gone online.
In short, sex traders have become more sophisticated in a bid to outdo police and other law enforcement officials. The government will have to mobilize all possible means to win the fight. Or it might fail to shake off its bad reputation for human trafficking for sexual exploitation.