By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
It is now four years since the first massive crackdown on prostitution took place, but the effects have been somewhat less than effective. More ``semi-brothels'' such as the ``massage club'' and ``Hyugaetel (rest hotel) are mushrooming nationwide, Rep. Lim Doo-sung of the governing Grand National Party said Tuesday.
Lim said that the number of people apprehended for violating the Anti-Prostitution Law has increased sharply year after year ― 18,508 in 2005, 39,236 last year and 20,407 for just the first half of this year. More elderly and underage people are also engaging in the illegal services.
However, the arrest warrant issuance rate has dropped from 4.5 percent in 2005, when crackdown ``started,'' to 1 percent in the first half of 2008.
``It seems that the ongoing campaign to root out prostitution seems cosmetic since it is not strongly applied. We will never be able to reduce it this way,'' Lim said.
Due to a crackdown on red-light districts, many prostitutes are going underground. Through mobile phones, the Internet and disguised matchmaking agents, it is easy to find sex partners, observers said. Costs were also getting higher, however.
Passing as massage places or rest motels, pseudo brothels are now located in business as well as residential areas. Therefore, police crackdowns have become more elusive, they said.
A recent high-profile crackdown on a red-light district in Jangan-dong, eastern Seoul, gave the false impression that the prostitution business was fading away. However, many prostitutes and pimps simply moved outside Seoul to nearby satellite cities where regulations are relatively loose.
A crackdown in Gangnam, an affluent area of Seoul, was unsuccessful as the ``outlets'' were disguised.
It is also alleged that due to lingering police-pimp collusion, prostitution will never be wiped out, with allegations that some police officers have invested financially in brothels and brothel-like businesses.
Unless the government comes up with proper rehabilitation programs for the prostitutes, these women will never get out of the poverty circle and simply go back to the brothels again, a professor said. ``Unless prostitutes are guided into getting jobs, they will simply try to avoid the crackdown and not quit the industry,'' Prof. Jeong Gang-ja of Chonnam National University said.
Police have stated they will continue their fight against the business and expand crackdowns nationwide.