Teenage Prostitution in Korea « The Grand Narrative

Teenage Prostitution in Korea

Posted in Korean Children and Teenagers, Korean Sexuality by James Turnbull on October 31, 2007

I’m still a little busy with my MA until next week, and blogwise I have to catch up with some comments, and still have a lot of photo resizing in old posts to do because of my change of template last week, so today I’m going to be a little hypocritical and merely post an interesting article I found from the Korea Times here.

But seriously though, the question of figures has been important ever since I first wrote on the subject of teenage prostitution and “compensated dates” (원조교제) here, so the article is very relevant to that. I honestly think that that is one of my best posts, so if you’re interested in this topic please check that out first, but you should especially check out this much better and more comprehensive post on the subject by Matt at Gusts of Popular Feeling that he mentions in his comment to it.

Runaway Teenagers Sell Sex?

By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

Runaway teenagers are exposed to illegal sex trade, a lawmaker said.

Rep. Jang Hyang-sook of the United New Democratic Party said 14 percent of the 300 female teenagers, and four out of the 164 males at the Korea Youth Shelter in 2005, had sold sex more than once.

The respondents said family problems drove them out onto the streets. About half said they first ran away either during elementary school or when younger, while 39 percent and 10 percent said they had done so in middle and high school, respectively.

Life on the streets is not easy, they said. They were not able to find permanent jobs and instead worked part-time at gas stations, fast-food restaurants, coffee shops or delivering newspapers and leaflets. Eight of the 300 females at the shelter worked regularly as prostitutes.

Among 414 teenagers who stayed at the same youth facility in 2006, 19 percent said that they had sex before leaving home, and 31.2 percent said they had sex after running away. Jang said their chances of contracting sexually transmissible diseases doubled in the runaway period.

The lawmaker said these teenagers were in dire need of a family healing program to bring them back home. “In the United States these runaway teenagers are considered in need of protection. The government ought to develop a family therapy program and help them return home, or take care of them if necessary,” she added.