[Letters] Sex trade must come to an end

Walking across the street after finishing hagwon one day, a flier with a conspicuous phrase caught my eye: “KISS CLUB.” With some lurid pornography shameful to see, the flier read, “70,000 won ($56) per hour. Reservation is a MUST. Also looking for part-timers. 45,000 won an hour. You can earn up to 180,000 won a day!” I could not believe my eyes. How could someone post fliers in the middle of the street with phrases and pictures so inappropriate to look at? Although my friend and I first picked it up out of curiosity, I could not be more angry at how the sex trade is thriving in Korean society.

I feel so shameful that, as a woman, Korean society is allowing the commercialization of women as nothing more than sex products. By expanding the sex industry with more sex trade and prostitution, women are being degraded. This is unacceptable to me, as a growing teen, because women of the 21st century deserve the same treatment as men. What happened to the women’s rights that our ancestors earned for us? I cannot let South Korean society degrade the reputation of women, which directly leads to the reputation of myself as well as the future generation.

In many cases, only men involved in sex trade get arrested, but since sex trade and prostitution are obvious violations of the law, all who were involved should be arrested and punished accordingly. There seem to be a lot of efforts made to help prostitutes get back to living. Although I do not disagree with providing assistance to them, assistance should only be given to those who are trying to get back to having normal lives, not those who remain in prostitution. Many of them seem to think that they are the victims, but if they had been engaged in selling sex even once, they should be punished and taught that the sex trade is illegal.

But we must consider the fact that many women, especially more and more teenagers, engage in selling sex as a means of living. This shows society is incapable of embracing every single citizen. Whether it may be the failure of education or a financial failure, we, as members of society, should not lead them to their last resort. This means that we should make efforts to alleviate poverty and educate people.

As a female student interested in human rights, I am willing to show my enthusiasm to create change. I hope that many people, both men and women, feel concerned about the current situation of the flourishing sex trade and do what they can to help. We must not forget that all women, and men as well, are worth more than 180,000 won a day. Yoon Hae-ri, Sookmyung Girls’ High School