Tragedy on Many Fronts: South Korea Story on Aging Women Near U.S. Base
From the Associated Press in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, an especially troubling history with issues of abuse, human rights, comparative law, international relations, military accountability, and aging:
“More than 70 aging women live in a squalid neighborhood between the rear gate of the U.S. Army garrison here and half a dozen seedy nightclubs. Near the front gate, glossy illustrations posted in real-estate offices show the dream homes that may one day replace their one-room shacks. They once worked as prostitutes for American soldiers in this “camptown” near Camp Humphreys, and they’ve stayed because they have nowhere else to go. Now, the women are being forced out of the Anjeong-ri neighborhood by developers and landlords eager to build on prime real estate around the soon-to-be-expanded garrison.
‘My landlord wants me to leave, but my legs hurt, I can’t walk, and South Korean real estate is too expensive,’ says Cho Myung-ja, 75, a former prostitute who receives monthly court eviction notices at her home, which she has rarely left over the last five years because of leg pain. ‘I feel like I’m suffocating,’ she says.
Plagued by disease, poverty and stigma, the women have little to no support from the public or the government. Their fate contrasts greatly with a group of Korean women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during World War II. Those so-called “comfort women” receive government assistance under a special law, and large crowds demanding that Japan compensate and apologize to the women attend weekly rallies outside the Japanese Embassy.
While the camptown women get social welfare, there’s no similar law for special funds to help them, according to two Pyeongtaek city officials who refused to be named because of office rules. Many people in South Korea don’t even know about the camptown women.”
For more of the story, see “Aging South Koreans, Once Prostitutes for U.S. Troops, Being Pushed Away from Base They Never Left.”