One Event the U.S. Won’t Cover at the Winter Olympics: Its Own “Comfort Women”

To this day it’s something my aunt hardly mentions, let alone discusses. And like a few other families living in the United States, it’s taboo and completely off limits. Indeed, as World War II came to a close, official policy about the interactions between American troops and local women in occupied Korea may have been “hands off Korean women,” but this did not include women in brothels, dance halls, sex bars, or working the streets. To American GI’s, in particular, they were better known as “comfort women.”

Out With the Old And In With the New
Granted, America’s comfort women weren’t treated nearly as harsh and brutal as those within the Japanese war machine, which were sometimes gang raped and later killed or forced into sexual slavery. Neither was it as widespread, since Japan had nearly conquered most of East Asia including parts of China. But still, U.S. military authorities occupying Korea after the war took over some of the “comfort stations” that had once been central to Japan’s imperial ambitions since the nineteenth century.

What’s more, U.S. authorities continued the comfort station system absent formal slavery. Comfort women therefore experienced the same conditions of exceedingly limited choice under their new masters, something that drove one Korean official to write: “Americans act as though Koreans were a conquered nation rather than a liberated people.”(1) With the assistance of some Korean officials, camptowns and prostitution also became a critical part of a South Korean economy struggling to emerge from a devastating war.

Venereal disease and other communicable infections meanwhile became widespread. The U.S. military government in effect created a VD Control Section that instituted regular inspections and treatment for “entertaining girls.” This category included licensed prostitutes, dancers, bar girls, and sex bar waitresses. Between May 1947 and July 1948, medical personnel not only examined almost fifteen thousand women, but many more American GI’s who were eventually treated for sexual diseases.

The arrangements were actually formalized after the 1950 outbreak of the Korean War between the North and South. To be sure, “The municipal authorities have already issued the approval for establishing UN comfort stations in return for the Allied Forces’ toil,” wrote the Pusan Daily. The paper further reported that “In a few days, five stations will be set up in the downtown areas of new and old Masan. The authorities are asking citizens to give much cooperation in coming days.”(2)

The New Norm: Sex Trafficking American Style
After the signing of the 1953 Armistice between North and South Korea, brothels and camptowns increased. Eighteen new camptowns to service American GI’s were in fact created immediately. What’s more, they were virtually colonized spaces where Korean sovereignty was suspended and replaced by the U.S. military authorities. Consequently, the livelihoods of Koreans in the camptowns were completely dependent on GI’s buying power, sex work being a core part of the camptown economy.

By 1958, it is estimated that there were three hundred thousand sex workers in a country whose entire population was just 22 million. In addition to widespread sex trafficking, the middle of downtown Seoul, where the Army occupied the 640-acre Yongsan Garrison originally built by Japanese colonizers, the Itaewon neighborhood filled with bars and brothels. American GI’s consequently named it “Hooker Hill.”(3) Cohabitating marriage, resembling European-style colonial concubine, became popular too.

When a military junta seized power in South Korea in a 1961 coup, Korean officials went as far as to create legally recognized “special districts” for businesses catering to U.S. troops. At the request of the U.S., the new dictatorial leader even made them off-limits to Korean authorities and police. As a result, American military police could arrest whoever they wanted to-and whenever they wanted to. By 1965, 85 percent of American GI’s surveyed had reported having been with at least one prostitute.(4)

Despite all the rhetoric how the U.S. fights human trafficking and prostitution, some camptowns still exist today nearby many of the U.S. military instillations in South Korea. They’re actually reminders of a hyper militarized masculinity, American style, something my aunt left behind but can’t ever forget. Indeed, she was one of the few fortunate one’s who happened to marry an American GI. In the meantime, a handful of photos can’t hide the broader American military culture: one founded on sexism and militaristic patriarchy.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com//dallasdarling.

NOTES:
(1) Vine, David. Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America And The World. New York, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2015., p. 164.
(2) Ibid., p. 164.
(3) Ibid., p. 165.
(4) Ibid., p. 165.