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Women's rights in North Korea have varied throughout history. In recent history, major events of the 20th century, such as the Division of Korea and later the 1990s North Korean famine have played an important role in shaping sex relations.
Before 1945, in North Korea, women had very few rights. They were expected to give birth to male heirs and rear them to assure the continuation of the family line. Women had few opportunities to participate in the social, economic, or political life of society. In traditional Korean society, academic education was not considered important for women, and only a few received formal education. In the 19th century, it was Christian missionaries who established girls' schools, thus allowing young Korean females to obtain a modern education. [1] There were a few exceptions to these limitations. For example, female shamans were called on to cure illnesses by driving away evil spirits, to pray for rain during droughts, or to perform divination and fortune-telling. [1]
The social status and roles of women were radically changed after 1945. On July 30, 1946, authorities north of the thirty-eighth parallel passed a Sex Equality Law. The 1972 constitution asserted that "women hold equal social status and rights with men." The 1990 constitution stipulates that the state creates various conditions for the advancement of women in society. In principle, North Korean law supports sexual equality. [1]
Many challenges remained however. Although the new regime brought women more equal participation in the labor force outside the home and more access to education, women continued to be considered inferior to men. An example is the strong son preference, and the burden put on women to do most housework, and the different sex roles confirmed by the practice of separating boys and girls at both the elementary and higher middle-school levels. Some aspects of school curricula for boys and girls also are different, with greater emphasis on physical education for boys and on home economics for girls. However, in the four-year university system, women majoring in medicine, biology, and foreign languages and literature seem especially numerous. [1]
North Korea remains a highly patriarchal society, and the women's role in the family sphere and in the public sphere has changed several times from the end of World War II to this day. After the war, women were enrolled in the socialist economy in large numbers, and played a major role in the rebuilding of the country. But as the economy improved in later decades, women were less needed in the workforce, and a move towards more traditional roles emerged. [2]
State employees were given rations and most families could survive on that. But during the North Korean famine of the 1990s, these rations, known as the Public Distribution System, dried up and families had to look elsewhere for financial support. Men, even though they are not receiving payment, are still required to attend their government jobs. The cash-strapped government relies heavily on the free labor they get from men and it is unlikely to discontinue this practice anytime soon. [3]
For men to be free from work, they actually must pay their employer between 20 and 30 times their monthly salary, allowing them to take on other, more profitable jobs, such as repair work. This payment is required even if one is unable to afford food to eat, otherwise they are punished with jail time. The current involvement of women in the labor market is uncertain, because of the unregulated grey economy informal market economic system which has proliferated since the famine. According to Human Rights Watch, women traders in the informal sector are vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation, and "implementation of rules and regulations over market operations are arbitrary and government officials can demand bribes and sexually harass and coerce women with impunity." [3]
Even within the lowest rungs of the songbun system, the ascribed caste system of North Korea, women face unique hostilities. It is common for those living in poverty to turn to prostitution and drug use, and even those who manage to escape the country through China risk being sexually abused or trafficked. [4] [ better source needed ]
The great famine of the 1990s changed the North Korean society deeply that the world is still trying to understand the width and the depth of that change. During and after the famine, millions of North Koreans grasped at any survival strategy necessary to feed themselves. Those who did not change, and whom the state did not feed, died. For thousands of North Korean women, prostitution was the survival strategy of last way to feed themselves, and often, their children. [5]
In Kim Il Sung's North Korea, the sex trade was invisible to the outside world. That began to change when Chinese traffickers and johns forced thousands of female famine refugees into the sex trade. By the end of the great famine, prostitution had become stealthily ubiquitous inside North Korea. It also became more organized and more predatory, with state officials playing a growing role in its patronage and protection. [5]
In Hamhung in 2008, a number of high-ranking party officials were accused of patronizing a tea house that also sold sex, and for protecting it against police interference. In Hyesan in 2009, the manager of a state-run inn frequently patronized by central party officials was arrested for pimping women and girls, some in their mid-teens. North Korea's 2009 currency "reform" drove more women into the sex trade. By 2010, prostitution in Chongjin had been organized by “couple managers” who matched customers, often soldiers, with sex workers, often female university students, and sometimes women who had become dependent on drugs. In 2014, the manager of a North Korean factory in China was accused of pimping out female factory workers. [5]
The reports do not suggest that the state has consciously chosen to tolerate or profit from the sex trade as a matter of policy. The security forces periodically crack down on the sex trade, but inevitably, when corrupt authorities attempt to police a profitable trade, the authorities begin to see that trade as just another way to supplement their pay. More fundamentally, in a society where officials are the law, where enforcement is arbitrary, and where the state profits from trade at least indirectly, it can be hard to tell the difference between corruption and state policy. Today, the Daily NK reports that prostitution is increasingly run by well-connected businessmen and protected by the officials they're connected with. [5]
A North Korean defector informed Ha Tae-kyung, a lawmaker of the Saenuri Party and publisher specializing in North Korea, that were approximately 500 prostitutes in their city, which has a population of 400,000. [6] “If [we] depend on the simple arithmetic calculation and put North Korean population as 20 million, we can assume that there should be about 25,000 prostitutes in North Korea,” Ha told Sieff. [6]
A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.
Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership right over one or more people with the intent of coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in sexual activities. This includes forced labor, reducing a person to a servile status and sex trafficking persons, such as the sexual trafficking of children.
Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child prostitution is illegal as part of general prohibition on prostitution.
COYOTE is an American sex workers' rights organization. Its name is a backronym for Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics, a reflection of the fact that sex work tends to be stigmatized primarily because of society-imposed standards of ethics. COYOTE's goals include the decriminalization of prostitution, pimping and pandering, as well as the elimination of social stigma concerning sex work as an occupation. Its work is considered part of the larger sex worker movement for legal and human rights.
Prostitution in South Korea is illegal, but according to The Korea Women's Development Institute, the sex trade in Korea was estimated to amount to 14 trillion South Korean won in 2007, roughly 1.6% of the nation's gross domestic product. According to a survey conducted by the Department of Urology at the Korea University College of Medicine in 2015, 23.1% of males and 2.6% of females, aged 18–69, had sexual experience with a prostitute.
The legality of prostitution in Asia varies by country. There is often a significant difference in Asia between prostitution laws and the practice of prostitution. In 2011, the Asian Commission on AIDS estimated there were 10 million sex workers in Asia and 75 million male customers.
Sanlaap is an Indian feminist non-governmental organisation, established by Indrani Sinha in 1987 in Calcutta. Based in Calcutta, the group aims to protect the human rights of women and girls. Sanlaap is a developmental organisation that works towards correction of social imbalances which present themselves as gender injustice and violence against women and children. The primary work is focused against trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and forced prostitution. As part of its work, the group starts shops to train girls to make a living and foster their independence.
Forced prostitution, also known as involuntary prostitution or compulsory prostitution, is prostitution or sexual slavery that takes place as a result of coercion by a third party. The terms "forced prostitution" or "enforced prostitution" appear in international and humanitarian conventions, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but have been inconsistently applied. "Forced prostitution" refers to conditions of control over a person who is coerced by another to engage in sexual activity.How many women live through this type of abuse everyday remains unknown.
Prostitution in Mexico is legal under Federal Law. Each of the 31 states enacts its own prostitution laws and policies. Thirteen of the states of Mexico allow and regulate prostitution. Prostitution involving minors under 18 is illegal. Some Mexican cities have enacted "tolerance zones" which allow regulated prostitution and function as red-light districts. In Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of the state of Chiapas, there is a state-run brothel at the Zona Galáctica(Galactic Zone). In most parts of the country, pimping is illegal, although pimp-worker relationships still occur, sometimes under female pimps called "madrotas"("Big Mothers"). The government provides shelter for former prostitutes.
Prostitution in Brazil is legal, in terms of exchanging sex for money, as there are no laws forbidding adults from being professional sex workers, but it is illegal to operate a brothel or to employ sex workers in any other way. Public order and vagrancy laws are used against street prostitutes. The affordability of prostitutes is the most inquired-about term in word completion queries on purchases on Google in Brazil.
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact with the customer. The requirement of physical contact also creates the risk of transferring diseases. Prostitution is sometimes described as sexual services, commercial sex or, colloquially, hooking. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. A person who works in this field is called a prostitute, and often a sex worker.
Prostitution in Pakistan is a taboo culture of sex-trade that exists as an open secret but illegal. Prostitution is largely based in organisational setups like brothels or furthered by individual call girls.
Prostitution in Vietnam is illegal and considered a serious crime. Nonetheless, Vietnam's Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) has estimated that there were 71,936 prostitutes in the country in 2013. Other estimates puts the number at up to 200,000.
The status of women in North Korea is not fully understood outside the country, due to the political isolation of North Korea, the unwillingness of the North Korean authorities to allow foreign investigators access in the country, and the existence of conflicting reports. The official position of the North Korean government is that women have equal rights with men.
There exists a diversity of feminist views on prostitution. Many of these positions can be loosely arranged into an overarching standpoint that is generally either critical or supportive of prostitution and sex work. The discourse surrounding prostitution is often discussed assuming sex workers are women, but those in the field of sex work and prostitution are not always women.
Sexuality in South Korea has been influenced by culture, religion, and westernization. Viewpoints in contemporary society can be viewed as a conflict between the traditional, conservative older generation and the more liberal and 'modern' generation. Due to this conflict, several issues in Korea, including sexual education, homosexuality, and sexual behavior are highly contested.
Sex trafficking in Thailand is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the Kingdom of Thailand. Thailand is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sex trafficking. Child prostitution in Thailand is a problem. In Thailand, close to 40,000 children under the age of 16 are believed to be in the sex trade, working in clubs, bars, and brothels.
Sex trafficking in the United States is a form of human trafficking which involves reproductive slavery or commercial sexual exploitation as it occurs in the United States. Sex trafficking includes the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or force into exploitative and slavery-like conditions. It is commonly associated with organized crime.
Sex trafficking in China is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the People's Republic of China. China, the world's most populous country, has the second highest number of human trafficking victims in the world. It is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons.
Sex trafficking in South Korea is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the Republic of Korea. South Korea is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons. Sex trafficking victims in the country are from South Korea and foreigners.
