A facility, once used to detain and forcibly treat sex workers for sexually transmitted infections, sits abandoned in Dongducheon, northern Gyeonggi Province, Jan. 6, 2018. / Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

By Martin Limon

I was heartened to learn that the Republic of Korea Supreme Court has ordered the state to pay compensation to Korean women who worked in the sex trade catering to U.S. troops. What is still missing, I believe, is an understanding of just how influential U.S. military commanders were in facilitating the exploitation of the women in the "gijichon" or "base camp" villages.

The sex workers were required to keep their "VD cards" up to date and as such received a medical checkup every week. Those who tested positive were involuntarily shot full of penicillin and forcibly locked up until they were deemed healthy enough to be released. GIs, on the other hand, would attend military "sick call" and if they tested positive they would be asked for the name of the woman who had been their last contact. Most didn't answer because they didn't want to get someone in trouble, but whether they answered or not, they would be provided the appropriate medication and be allowed to return to regular duty.

Various military commanders used different means of dealing with the epidemic of venereal disease. In Seoul, one Army medic was in charge of the program and was thus nicknamed the "VD Honcho." If he collected a few names of women who might have transmitted the disease, he would go out to the village, in this case, Itaewon, and try to find them. If he did, he would notify the Korean authorities and she would be tested and if found to be positive, she would receive treatment and be locked up.

Outside the 2nd Infantry Division headquarters at Camp Casey, the gijichon was in Dongduchon, northern Gyeonggi Province. Again medics and a Korean government representative would comb the village for women who had been named by GIs. As an added twist, the division was very concerned with equality of treatment of all GIs regardless of their race or ethnicity. So if a GI complained that the women at a certain bar or brothel or nightclub wouldn't accept him as a client because of his race, they would investigate that too. The local authorities would be informed and the business would be threatened with being put on the "off-limits" list, which would virtually ensure that they would soon be bankrupt. So the pressure was on for the sex worker to accept any and all GIs as clients or risk the wrath of the people she worked for. Clearly, a form of sex slavery.

I served in the U.S. Army for 20 years as an enlisted man, and was lucky enough to be assigned to Korea five times, serving a total of 10 years in the country during the period stretching from 1968 to 1986. During those years, I was assigned to various base camps, completed temporary duty in many others and traveled frequently in my free time: from Busan to Jinhae to Daegu to Osan to Uijeongbu to Dongducheon to Seonyu-ri to Munsan, and then down south again to Gimpo and Bucheon and Incheon. I've seen how the military operates in all these places and the inordinate pressure a U.S. commander can put on local Korean government officials ― all of it backed up by the Korean government's desire to maintain strong relations with the U.S., not only for purposes of economic growth but also in order to maintain the alliance in the face of the pernicious North Korean threat.

Paying for this cooperation, at the lowest level, were the "business girls," the sex workers who bore the brunt of a largely indifferent Korean and U.S. military/governmental hierarchy. Not just the Korean government, but also the U.S. government, is responsible for the plight of those women. And for their suffering we, the U.S. taxpayers, should make sure that they are compensated by us.


Martin Limon is a full-time writer having published 15 novels set in Korea's modern past, featuring?CID detectives Sueno and Bascom.?