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[NYT] Suit Has South Korea Looking Anew at Its Hard Line on Prostitution

June 22, 2015

Sex workers hold a press conference in front of the Constitutional Court in Seoul on April 9, 2015 before attending the first public hearing on the constitutionality of the sex trafficking law. (Yonhap)

[THE NEW YORK TIMES] – Kim Jeong-mi, a 43-year-old prostitute in Seoul, says she knows about humiliation. She usually charges customers 20,000 to 30,000 won, or about $18 to $27 — roughly a third of what her younger competition gets. When desperate, she has gone as low as 10,000 won. She has felt people sneering.

But what happened in July 2012 was too much to accept, she says. Three uniformed male police officers raided her room while she was with a customer. During such raids, the police typically collect a used condom or other evidence from a bedside trash can.

But that night, she says, the officers made her get dressed for questioning while they watched and took photographs, “giving me no time to keep the least dignity as a human.”

So she pushed back.

She challenged the 500,000 won (about $450) fine from the police. With the help of an advocacy group, she also filed a lawsuit asking the Constitutional Court of South Korea to strike down a law that, besides criminalizing prostitution, calls on the state to root it out. [READ MORE]