Thousands of sex workers from across South Korea rallied yesterday, protesting a crackdown on prostitution and calling for the resignation of the minister of gender equality.
Wearing baseball caps and face masks to hide their identities, some 3,000 prostitutes chanted slogans and sang pop songs while staging a sit-in protest outside a railway station near a famous red light district in northeastern Seoul.
"Resign, minister of gender equality," they shouted, referring to Chi Eun-Hee who took a leading role in drafting a tough anti-prostitution law which took effect last month.
"Legalize our trade, guarantee our right to live," they chanted, holding balloons bearing slogans supporting their protest.
There was no violence during the protest watched by some 100 policemen who did not intervene.
The prostitutes denied reports that they were acting under the direction of brothel owners, many of them male, whose businesses face collapse because of the crackdown.
Under the new anti-prostitution law, police launched the massive clampdown from late September on brothels, barber shops, massage parlors and karaoke bars across the nation, rounding up some 3,000 violators including customers.
Businesses associated with the sex trade in many parts of the capital and other cities, including bars and motels in red light districts, have complained of sharp falls in income while the delinquency rate of bank loans to those businesses has been rising sharply.
The sex industry accounts for more than 4 percent of South Korea's gross domestic product, with its annual sales estimated at 24 trillion won (US$21 billion) last year.
Statistics show one in five South Korean men buy sex four times a month and 4.1 percent of women aged 20 to 30 rely on prostitution to make a living.
The new law stipulates much tougher punishment, with brothel owners facing up to 10 years in jail or 100 million won in fines, instead of five years' imprisonment and 15 million won of fines.
Women's groups say an indefinite clampdown is needed to eradicate a culture of male exploitation, saying hundreds of thousands of women serve as prostitutes in brothels, barber shops, massage parlors, karaoke bars and drinking houses.
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