A story in the Korea Times reports on sweeping arrests made in one of Seoul’s more notorious red-light districts, Jangan-dong, where police apprehended over a hundred sex workers and their clients, as well as over a ton of contraband.
Since then, police have arrested six pimps and booked roughly 157 sex workers and customers. It has also confiscated hundreds of bathtubs, beds and even faucets installed at massage clubs and hyugaetels, about 100 tons in weight, to prevent them from resuming business.
During the police raids one pimp, identified by his surnmae Choi, hung himself in an underground parking lot after leaving behind a will which read
We are aware it’s illegal. But there is no choice but to do this for a living at least for now. Please suspend the operation for a while and give us a chance to look for another job.
According the to report, the martyred pimp roused colleagues to protest the so-called “cleanup operation,” which they say was unecessarily harsh and was robbing them of their livelihoods.Protesting pimps say they want to sit down with local authorities to hammer out a “win-win situation.” Wonder what that might entail.
Anyway, we can now add pimps to the growing list of those engaging in political activism, alongside Buddhist monks, Catholic priests, candle weilding parents, etc…
Filed under: Daily life, Headlines, Seoul | Tagged: Korea, protests, Seoul, sex workers
