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The Women Outside: Korean Women and the U.S. Military

Category: Human Trafficking/Exploitation

Authors Hyun S. Kim, JT Takagi, and Hye-Jung Park developed this Third World Newsreel publication (1997/updated 2009), to promote discussion about the 1995 Third World Newsreel documentary, "The Women Outside."   The film documents the lives of Korean women that existed until the end of the 1990s.  They are women working in brothels, bars and nightclubs that surround U.S. military bases in South Korea who find themselves living in American inner cities.  For more than 45 years, these Korean women are often poor, fraudulently lured to jobs through advertisements promising better lives, and some kidnapped.  They are ostracized, called "western princesses," in Korean society and once in the military "camptowns," it is very difficult to extract themselves from their circumstances.  Some experience rape and other abuse, their interracial children are stigmatized, and many experience discrimination and abandonment.  The women that find their ways to America, often find themselves in "camptown-like" living conditions--in bars and massage parlors located near military bases throughout the United States.

External Website:
Third World Newsreel