In a first, dozens of South Korean women who worked as prostitutes have filed a lawsuit accusing the United States military of illegally promoting the sex trade for decades and locking them up to forcibly treat them for sexually transmitted diseases.
In the lawsuit, announced in a news conference on Monday, the women demanded that the U.S. military apologize and pay damages for playing a hand in managing a vast network of prostitution around its bases in South Korea. Korean women who worked in bars and brothels frequented by American troops have reported rampant human rights violations.
In 2022, the women won a court ruling against their own government. South Korea’s Supreme Court ordered the government to compensate dozens of women for the trauma they endured as “comfort women for the U.S. military,” as they were once known. The court found the government guilty of encouraging prostitution for American G.I.s to help bring in badly needed U.S. dollars for the economy and maintain ties with the United States, on which it relied for security. It also said the government forced many women to receive treatment for sexually transmitted diseases in a “systematic and violent” way.
The latest lawsuit, which was filed at a Seoul court on Friday, was the first attempt by the women to hold the U.S. military accountable. The women and their lawyers said that the U.S. military was “the real culprit” in what was a state-sponsored sex trade, even allowing comfort women inside its bases and near its field training grounds.
Posted by John3262005