Prostitution Exports Expand to Include Male Variety
Aug.23,2006 20:50 KST
Digital Chosunilbo
In the midst of the already plenty disgraceful news of the pan-pacific expedition into the U.S. of Korean sex trade workers, now even Korean host bars (with male prostitutes) have been uncovered in China.
According to a statement from the Seoul Metropolitan Police on Wednesday, a 36-year-old Korean man being identified by his last name Kim is being held by Chinese authorities under suspicion of hiring male hosts to work at his sex bar. Nine men who worked at the bar have been booked here but not detained. It is alleged that Kim earned some 696,000 Yuan (W83.5 million; US$1=W956) in illegal profits through his business venture that catered to Chinese women and Korean female tourists between December of last year and February of this year. Police say that Kim employed his own style of "Korean Wave marketing": proudly noting on the handbills and Internet ads that the men were Korean.
A police insider says, "The male workers would either perform a nude show, or perform various other kinds of lewd acts using their naked bodies." The establishment was uncovered by Chinese public security officials in February, and the owner is currently being tried, while the employees were deported after serving 15-30 days in prison. Police say that they have received a statement from Kim that he even had a recruiter to bring Korean men and Korean Chinese to work at his bar. Police are currently trying to locate the man.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
From Christianity Today
Christianity Today, September 2006
Q&A
Nicholas Kristof
Interview by Collin Hansen | posted 08/30/2006 09:30 a.m.
What has your reporting taught you about Christianity in China?
Christianity has certainly been growing since the early 1980s. But in the past there's been a certain stigma attached to it among some intellectual quarters, because often the Christians have been peasants. It struck me that in the last few years there have been more intellectuals in the cities converting to Christianity.
To some degree Christianity has also become linked to democratic protest in a way that reminds me a lot of South Korea in the 1980s. I think the government is really nervous about how to deal with this. Christianity creates networks of people around the country, which is something that traditionally the Communist Party has not faced. It creates a source of moral authority and legitimacy that is outside the government. In Poland the Communist Party had this terrible problem with the Catholic Church. The Chinese never had anything remotely like that. The Christian church may be the beginnings of such a framework. And the fact that President Bush is a Christian, is concerned about Christians in China, that gives Christians in China a measure of protection that Falun Gong, for example, does not. China would not get away with beating to death lots and lots of underground Christian church leaders.
In this country we somewhat exaggerate the degree of repression against Christianity. It's very real, but it tends to be somewhat localized. Your average Christian in China hasn't been threatened, doesn't know anybody who's been beaten up. Christianity to some degree has become cool. It's become kind of a famous brand in the same way people want to have brand name clothes or carry a brand name purse. There is an element in China of Christianity being a brand name religion.
What are some ways that Christians in America can encourage the growth of Christianity in China?
I don't think we should exaggerate our ability to shape what goes on in Chinese society. All those vast efforts to send missionaries to China early in the 20th century really didn't get very far. The future of faith in China is going to be determined by the Chinese themselves. Where you get Christians who are arrested, beaten up, I think Americans can and should play a role in denouncing those kinds of abuses and speaking out against those kinds of injustices.
But if Christians are perceived as a fifth column or as pawns of Americans, that will discredit it. China is a deeply nationalist country. Americans should also be a little bit leery because Christianity in China covers a huge range. There are also a number of cults that call themselves Christians. When they get in trouble, they try to get help from the West.
Christians shouldn't only speak up on behalf of Christians who are tortured. Falun Gong is bearing the biggest brunt of religious repression in China. It behooves the American evangelical community to speak up when Falun Gong believers are tortured or their children taken away.
Q&A
Nicholas Kristof
Interview by Collin Hansen | posted 08/30/2006 09:30 a.m.
What has your reporting taught you about Christianity in China?
Christianity has certainly been growing since the early 1980s. But in the past there's been a certain stigma attached to it among some intellectual quarters, because often the Christians have been peasants. It struck me that in the last few years there have been more intellectuals in the cities converting to Christianity.
To some degree Christianity has also become linked to democratic protest in a way that reminds me a lot of South Korea in the 1980s. I think the government is really nervous about how to deal with this. Christianity creates networks of people around the country, which is something that traditionally the Communist Party has not faced. It creates a source of moral authority and legitimacy that is outside the government. In Poland the Communist Party had this terrible problem with the Catholic Church. The Chinese never had anything remotely like that. The Christian church may be the beginnings of such a framework. And the fact that President Bush is a Christian, is concerned about Christians in China, that gives Christians in China a measure of protection that Falun Gong, for example, does not. China would not get away with beating to death lots and lots of underground Christian church leaders.
In this country we somewhat exaggerate the degree of repression against Christianity. It's very real, but it tends to be somewhat localized. Your average Christian in China hasn't been threatened, doesn't know anybody who's been beaten up. Christianity to some degree has become cool. It's become kind of a famous brand in the same way people want to have brand name clothes or carry a brand name purse. There is an element in China of Christianity being a brand name religion.
What are some ways that Christians in America can encourage the growth of Christianity in China?
I don't think we should exaggerate our ability to shape what goes on in Chinese society. All those vast efforts to send missionaries to China early in the 20th century really didn't get very far. The future of faith in China is going to be determined by the Chinese themselves. Where you get Christians who are arrested, beaten up, I think Americans can and should play a role in denouncing those kinds of abuses and speaking out against those kinds of injustices.
But if Christians are perceived as a fifth column or as pawns of Americans, that will discredit it. China is a deeply nationalist country. Americans should also be a little bit leery because Christianity in China covers a huge range. There are also a number of cults that call themselves Christians. When they get in trouble, they try to get help from the West.
Christians shouldn't only speak up on behalf of Christians who are tortured. Falun Gong is bearing the biggest brunt of religious repression in China. It behooves the American evangelical community to speak up when Falun Gong believers are tortured or their children taken away.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
BBC report on China and Human Trafficking
I am sorry about such a long delay. I have been working on finishing my final paper for school which I did last week. Anyway, I am planning on getting updated on blogger now.
Below is a copy of a recent BBC article on the sex trade in China
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Last Updated: Wednesday, 9 August 2006, 21:50 GMT 22:50 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
China slow to wake up to human trade
By Jill McGivering
BBC News, Yunnan
Young girls in Yunnan want to go to cities or abroad to find jobs
As China opens up, people trafficking is emerging as a growing threat, but officials are reluctant to admit the scale of the problem.
In Yunnan province, young women are being sold as wives or to brothels and sweat shops in Thailand.
Life in the small Yunnan villages, close to the border with Burma, is very different from other parts of China where the economy is booming. This is a sleepy world of lush rice paddies, hillsides bursting with rubber trees and dotted with Buddhist temples.
Many villages here contain ethnic minorities whose language and culture has more in common with northern Thailand than with the Han Chinese.
Local people say trade across the border with Burma has fallen. So too has tourism. So for young people growing up in these small hillside villages, there is little opportunity.
Every year, thousands of them pack up and leave, heading for China's cities or crossing through Burma to Thailand in the hope of well-paid jobs.
Some do make money and come back to the villages to show off their success. That only encourages more young people to follow suit. But for an unknown but perhaps growing number, it all goes horribly wrong.
'Tricked'
Trafficking is a hugely sensitive subject here. Officials do not really want to talk about it. And neither do victims. It took a lot of negotiating to find a young woman who was prepared to speak out for the first time and tell her story publicly.
Qing-qing says human trafficking has become a cycle
Qing-qing is 19 now but when she was just seven years old, she and her mother were sold.
"A woman my mother knows came to our house with some men we hadn't seen before," she told me. "My mother was tricked. They sold her as a bride to a man in eastern China."
The man beat her and her mother, she said, close to tears. At the age of 12, Qing-qing was forced to leave school and go to work. Their ordeal continued for eight years before they managed to escape and come home to their Yunnan village.
I asked her if this trafficking of vulnerable women still went on. "Yes," she said. "It's still going on in nearby villages."
"I know people who went through the same experience as my mother. Later some of them came back to the village to trick other people in the same way. It's become a cycle."
Teenagers
It was very difficult to find officials who could give a clear picture of the scale of trafficking.
One local Communist Party secretary told us it was certainly a potential threat, as more people migrated, but insisted it did not happen in his small community. But anecdotal evidence is widespread.
Long Hai-yu has been studying trafficking in Yunnan's villages for the last two years. She took me to one small village which she asked me not to name.
She talked to me about a case there involving two teenage girls who were recruited by strangers at the end of last year.
They were promised jobs in a shoe factory in Thailand, she said. But once the men took them across the border, they were blindfolded. The men started to threaten them and demand money from their families.
In fact, the two girls managed to raise the alarm and were rescued before they were taken any further, but Long Hai-yu said she thought they would have been sold into the Thai sex industry.
Not very much is known about who exactly the traffickers are. Long Hai-yu says they are Chinese people from another province, perhaps Sichuan province. They are not Thai, she explained, because it is too hard for Thai people to come to the villages to recruit girls.
Thousands cross from China into Burma every year
As for numbers, it is impossible to know. Once young girls leave for another country like Thailand, it is hard for their families to find out what has happened to them.
Long Hai-yu said that at just one nearby border point about 2,000 people cross into Burma every year.
"Many go to work in nightclubs and bars," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Who knows how many are trafficked?"
'Can't happen here'
The Chinese authorities are just starting to take action. Here in Yunnan they have set up the country's first anti-trafficking programme.
I watched two young women act out a play, one playing a cruel trafficker and the other a desperate trafficking victim who despairs and finally kills herself. But everyone in the audience got the message.
"Trafficking is when your boss doesn't give you all the money he owes you when you leave," said one girl.
A man sounded a reassuring note. "There's no need to worry," he said. "The government policy is good. Trafficking can't happen here."
But despite the reluctance to talk about it, all the evidence on the ground suggests trafficking is happening.
Researcher Long Hai-yu said she was extremely worried.
"The pattern is already changing," she told me. "Traffickers are targeting younger and younger girls, as young as 16."
As China opens up, its new freedoms are bringing new dangers. But they will be hard for the country's Communist system to address until it changes its culture of embarrassment and secrecy.
Below is a copy of a recent BBC article on the sex trade in China
BBC News in video and audio
News services
Your news when you want it
News Front Page
World
Africa
Americas
Asia-Pacific
Europe
Middle East
South Asia
UK
England
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Business
Politics
Health
Education
Science/Nature
Technology
Entertainment
-----------------
Have Your Say
Magazine
In Pictures
Country Profiles
In Depth
Programmes RELATED BBC SITES
SPORT
WEATHER
CBBC NEWSROUND
ON THIS DAY
EDITORS' BLOG
LANGUAGES
Chinese
Vietnamese
Indonesian
More
Last Updated: Wednesday, 9 August 2006, 21:50 GMT 22:50 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
China slow to wake up to human trade
By Jill McGivering
BBC News, Yunnan
Young girls in Yunnan want to go to cities or abroad to find jobs
As China opens up, people trafficking is emerging as a growing threat, but officials are reluctant to admit the scale of the problem.
In Yunnan province, young women are being sold as wives or to brothels and sweat shops in Thailand.
Life in the small Yunnan villages, close to the border with Burma, is very different from other parts of China where the economy is booming. This is a sleepy world of lush rice paddies, hillsides bursting with rubber trees and dotted with Buddhist temples.
Many villages here contain ethnic minorities whose language and culture has more in common with northern Thailand than with the Han Chinese.
Local people say trade across the border with Burma has fallen. So too has tourism. So for young people growing up in these small hillside villages, there is little opportunity.
Every year, thousands of them pack up and leave, heading for China's cities or crossing through Burma to Thailand in the hope of well-paid jobs.
Some do make money and come back to the villages to show off their success. That only encourages more young people to follow suit. But for an unknown but perhaps growing number, it all goes horribly wrong.
'Tricked'
Trafficking is a hugely sensitive subject here. Officials do not really want to talk about it. And neither do victims. It took a lot of negotiating to find a young woman who was prepared to speak out for the first time and tell her story publicly.
Qing-qing says human trafficking has become a cycle
Qing-qing is 19 now but when she was just seven years old, she and her mother were sold.
"A woman my mother knows came to our house with some men we hadn't seen before," she told me. "My mother was tricked. They sold her as a bride to a man in eastern China."
The man beat her and her mother, she said, close to tears. At the age of 12, Qing-qing was forced to leave school and go to work. Their ordeal continued for eight years before they managed to escape and come home to their Yunnan village.
I asked her if this trafficking of vulnerable women still went on. "Yes," she said. "It's still going on in nearby villages."
"I know people who went through the same experience as my mother. Later some of them came back to the village to trick other people in the same way. It's become a cycle."
Teenagers
It was very difficult to find officials who could give a clear picture of the scale of trafficking.
One local Communist Party secretary told us it was certainly a potential threat, as more people migrated, but insisted it did not happen in his small community. But anecdotal evidence is widespread.
Long Hai-yu has been studying trafficking in Yunnan's villages for the last two years. She took me to one small village which she asked me not to name.
She talked to me about a case there involving two teenage girls who were recruited by strangers at the end of last year.
They were promised jobs in a shoe factory in Thailand, she said. But once the men took them across the border, they were blindfolded. The men started to threaten them and demand money from their families.
In fact, the two girls managed to raise the alarm and were rescued before they were taken any further, but Long Hai-yu said she thought they would have been sold into the Thai sex industry.
Not very much is known about who exactly the traffickers are. Long Hai-yu says they are Chinese people from another province, perhaps Sichuan province. They are not Thai, she explained, because it is too hard for Thai people to come to the villages to recruit girls.
Thousands cross from China into Burma every year
As for numbers, it is impossible to know. Once young girls leave for another country like Thailand, it is hard for their families to find out what has happened to them.
Long Hai-yu said that at just one nearby border point about 2,000 people cross into Burma every year.
"Many go to work in nightclubs and bars," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Who knows how many are trafficked?"
'Can't happen here'
The Chinese authorities are just starting to take action. Here in Yunnan they have set up the country's first anti-trafficking programme.
I watched two young women act out a play, one playing a cruel trafficker and the other a desperate trafficking victim who despairs and finally kills herself. But everyone in the audience got the message.
"Trafficking is when your boss doesn't give you all the money he owes you when you leave," said one girl.
A man sounded a reassuring note. "There's no need to worry," he said. "The government policy is good. Trafficking can't happen here."
But despite the reluctance to talk about it, all the evidence on the ground suggests trafficking is happening.
Researcher Long Hai-yu said she was extremely worried.
"The pattern is already changing," she told me. "Traffickers are targeting younger and younger girls, as young as 16."
As China opens up, its new freedoms are bringing new dangers. But they will be hard for the country's Communist system to address until it changes its culture of embarrassment and secrecy.
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