South Korean Authorities Clampdown On Some 24,000 Prostitutes, Pimps, Client...

South Korean authorities caught nearly 24,000 prostitutes, pimps or clients in a two-month crackdown on the sex trade, the National Police Agency said last week.

Most the 23,626 caught -- of which about 19,900 were clients -- were fined, an officer at the anti-prostitution bureau told AFP, while 32 people accused of more serious offences were formally arrested and detained pending trial, the agency said.

Clients faced a maximum fine of three million won (3,315 dollars) and brothel owners up to 10 years in jail or 100 million won in fines.

"It was our third special crackdown on prostitution this year. The next one will begin in late December," the officer said of the latest operation, which began in August.

It was one of a series of police crackdowns since a new anti-prostitution law with tougher penalties was passed in 2004. Last year alone 35,000 clients were prosecuted.

The anti-prostitution drive has resulted in a sharp increase in incidents of South Koreans involved in the foreign sex trade. The government plans to revise the law to punish citizens caught buying sex abroad.

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Love Hotels, Prime Targets Of Japanese Investors

Lust is a prime motivator for those who frequent Japan's love hotels, but the subject of that hankering has moved from physical intimacy to making money, according to Dacapo.

Love hotels have become prime targets for investors because they provide high returns with comparatively low risks.

Global Financial Support has apparently found its Leisure Hotel Fund called the Hope Series to be a winner for investors and the hotels alike.

"The fund in this series guarantees dividend payouts of at least 8.4 percent over a year," Global Financial's Daisuke Kondo tells Dacapo.
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Global Financial's love hotel funds have seen increasing numbers of investors who have been willing to put ever more money into plans to get the shag shacks up and running.

Love hotel funds run for three years. Once they finish, the hotel is usually sold off, though sometimes the funds are maintained and investors stay on with them.

Love hotels are a steady business, with experts saying they offer a lot for investors looking for somewhere to put their money with minimal risk of losing it because the business depends on human instinct and is less susceptible to hiccups in the economy.

"Putting it simply, love hotels have a stable source of revenue. There aren't many companies getting into the business for the first time and there are an extremely small number of competitors," Kondo tells Dacapo. "Even if a competitor does enter the market, it's usually in an area where there are already a large number of love hotels, so it has a complementary rather than competitive effect. If couples go to a love hotel and find it fully booked, they're highly likely to go to another love hotel nearby and use that."

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Selling Sex Via SMS In Kuwait

A short text message sent to local mobile phone users offers what seems to be sexual services - or at least sex talk - over the phone. How did such a service get the numbers of people in Kuwait? What are telecom firms doing to block such unsavory advertisers? Dozens of people in Kuwait recently received this SMS message in Arabic: "Hi! I'm Muneera, call me and I will make you happy and satisfied." This message was sent to subscribers of only one telecommunications provider in Kuwait. The messages came from another Arab country. Needless to say, the services 'Muneera' seems to be offering are illegal in Kuwait.

SMS is a convenient and cheap means of advertising. Its direct to the targeted audience, highly likely to be read and if crafted well, sure to catch the attention of the mobile phone user. SMS ads also cost less than making cold calls to sell products. Many department stores, hotels and other service providers take the mobile numbers of their customers and send them SMS them about upcoming sales and promotions. Other companies buy lists of mobile numbers - either from a telecommunications firm or from a data list provider.

Many people are surprised when they receive promotional messages on their mobiles although they are not the customers of this company. Many simply delete the invasive SMS. But sometimes, this type of advertising can go too far. For an Arab Muslim country, pornographic messages or other services advertising sexual products are unacceptable.

Some of those who called 'Muneera' ended up with a KD 50 charge on their phone bill, this reporter has learned. Many others simply saw the SMS as offensive. "I'm married, and I'm not interested in such services or messages. I called the customer service department of the mobile provider, and complained. They promised they will work on banning such messages. I really didn't receive any more messages from this number, thus the customer service department didn't follow-up with me to see if I still do receive such messages or not," said 42 year old Kuwait resident Waleed.

Adults can suspect such weird and just delete them when receive. But what happens when a teen or even younger kids receive such messages?

According to a local telecommunications provider, the messages are being sent randomly. A customer service representative for the firm said "These swindlers are simply calling randomly any numbers. They know the international code, and then they only choose seven numbers randomly," the employee said. "We are working on this subject, and we hope we may definitely ban these messages from reaching our subscribers."

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Report Reveals Japan Army Sex Slavery Racket

Forcing women to become sex slaves was a crime organized by the Japanese military during Japan's invasion of China in the 1930s and 1940s, according to an investigative report published yesterday.

The first report by the Investigative Committee on Former Chinese "Comfort Women", co-founded by All China Lawyers' Association (ACLA) and China Legal Aid Foundation, traced 17 more survivors besides the ones who have already sued the Japanese government.

During its probe from September 2006 to March 2007, the committee found 14 of the 17 survivors were less than 18 when they were forced to become "comfort women", with the youngest being just 12.

Sixteen of the newly identified women were from North China's Shanxi Province and one from South China's Hainan Province, said the report posted on ACLA's website. The committee focused on five counties in Shanxi, two in Hainan and six in Yunnan.

Kang Jian, one of the lawyers behind the investigation, interviewed all the 17 survivors. "Now they are all in their 70s or 80s but they still suffer from serious mental and physical trauma," he said.

The Japanese army even tortured these "comfort women" by slashing them with knives or burning their faces with cigarettes.

"Many of them have no children and live in poverty. They told me their biggest wish was to get an apology and compensation from the Japanese government," Kang said.

But Tokyo has refused to pay direct compensation to any of the estimated 200,000 women, mostly Asian, saying all claims had been settled by subsequent peace treaties.

In April, Japan's top court rejected compensation claims of two Chinese women forced into the military brothels.

"Japanese courts have dismissed three Chinese 'comfort women's' lawsuits, while the fourth is going on," Kang said. "We carried out the investigations in a way that the documentation would help the court case."

The committee also released photographs of six Japanese officers' confessing about how they had "arrested" Chinese women and set up military brothels. Even a temple at Tengchong County in Yunnan Province was turned into a Japanese army brothel.

The "comfort women" practise lasted at least 16 years in China, the report said.

Su Zhiliang, director of the research center on "comfort women" in Shanghai Normal University, said more than 200,000 Chinese women were forced to become "comfort women" and over 75 percent of them were tortured to death.

"It's a shame that the Japanese government has rejected compensation pleas because the regulations and certificates show that the Japanese army and its government had forced women into prostitution," Su said. "In Hainan alone, there were 67 military brothels; there were more than 158 in Shanghai."

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FBI Hit Hispanic Brothels

Jared Allen

A joint Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Metro Police Department operation led to the weekend bust of the fifth Hispanic brothel that local authorities have taken down this year.

And investigators on Monday confirmed that the FBI's Nashville field office has taken the lead in looking into whether the operators of numerous Hispanic brothels in South Nashville are also violating federal anti-human trafficking laws.

So far, no charges of human trafficking have been brought against any of the dozen or so brothel managers arrested this year. Authorities did say the conditions in which the prostitutes are found living and working - including the low pay and frequent johns - continue to raise questions about human trafficking.

At the same time, though, local police believe their multiple busts are leading them further up the managerial ladder, and ultimately closer to what they believe may be a centralized organization responsible for securing the women, setting up the brothels and hiring managers and even armed security guards.

Metro Vice Squad Detective Joe Ladnier oversaw the weekend arrest of two managers and two prostitutes working out of a small apartment near the intersection of Old Hickory Boulevard and Nolensville Pike in Antioch.

Arrested and charged with prostitution were a 41-year-old and a 38-year-old female, both from the Dominican Republic, police said.

Police also arrested two managers, Oscar Rolando Castillo-Gonzalez, 28, and Juan Antonio Ruiz, 36, both of who listed the brothel as their home address. Castillo-Gonzalez and Ruiz are both charged with felony counts of promoting prostitution.

Ladnier said the preliminary investigation has shown that while Castillo-Gonzalez and Ruiz are low-level managers, they are both part of the same prostitution ring, the higher-ups of which are still at large, and likely running as many as 10 additional brothels - all catering solely to Hispanics - around Nashville.

"This one is definitely related to some of the others," Ladnier said. "Even some of the ones we've taken down this year."

In March Metro Police raided a similar apartment-style brothel - where Hispanic customers were paying $30 for sex, and where the women were seeing as many as 10 or more clients a day - located at 124 Welworth St. in Madison.

The two prostitutes and two managers found working inside the Welworth Street apartment were identified as illegal immigrants.

The four individuals arrested over the weekend were identified as illegal immigrants upon their booking into the Metro-Davidson County Jail, which now has the ability to run instant immigration checks through a federal database.

All four defendants are being detained on immigration holds.

Castillo-Gonzalez and Ruiz are scheduled to have a preliminary hearing today in General Sessions Court.

Police are hoping the two plead guilty and agree to provide information about any larger prostitution operation they may be a part of.

Stephen Richardson, the FBI's Supervisory Special Agent in Nashville, said his office could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

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From Human Trafficking To Sex Slavery

Jason Gregory

Lured.. ..some women have been forced or tricked into coming to Australia for sex work.
Federal police chasing sex slaves working in Brisbane are placing classified advertisements seeking public assistance to curb illegal trafficking.

Experts said the ads proved the difficulty police had in stopping the "well-established practice" of Asian and other overseas women working in Australia under trafficking contracts, either by faking visa applications or being held on a debt bondage.

The ad said some sex workers have been forced or tricked into sex work.

"Some have no choice over who they have sex with or what kind of sex work they do. They may not have access to the same health and safety services or work conditions as other sex workers," it reads.

Twilight at noon: Multimedia report on Queensland's illegal sex tradeMost of the women in question are from Thailand and other Asian countries, with a smaller percentage from Eastern Europe.

An AFP spokeswoman said the ads were part of the Government's long war on people smuggling.

Criminologist Paul Wilson said there were examples of trafficking involving extortion and blackmail with a woman's "trip" paid for by an agent and sometimes crime gangs.

"She must then work as a prostitute to repay the debt. Many are willing participants but some did not know they are going to be prostitutes," he said. "Some will service clients all day and night and are sometimes physically abused."

"Sometimes there are threats made against (Asian-based) relatives of the woman and the amount of money demanded be repaid is often an inflated figure."

Spokesman for the Queensland Adult Business Association Nick Inskip likened it to rape.

"The hardest thing to detect is when they come here for a few months and go home with their $1000 or $2000, having made the crime gangs $20,000 or more tax free," he said.

Spokesman for the Eros Foundation Robbie Swan warned authorities were "never going to win this war" while refusing to issue proper working visas to overseas prostitutes.

A spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said there were no plans to review the classification of overseas prostitutes.

Scarlet Alliance president Janelle Fawkes said there had been very few convictions for sex trafficking in Australia and only one in Queensland under laws created to crack down on international sex slavery.

She said there could be between 300 and 400 women in Australia working under a trafficking contract, but only a small percentage of those were in Queensland.

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