"one big pimp for the u.s. military"

A group of former prostitutes in South Korea have accused some of their country's former leaders of encouraging them to have sex with American soldiers from the 1960s through the 1980s. Basically, the government maintained their own little sex trade for the U.S military: Ex-Prostitutes Say South Korea and U.S. Enabled Sex Trade Near Bases.

Scholars on the issue say that the South Korean government was motivated in part by fears that the American military would leave, and that it wanted to do whatever it could to prevent that.

But the women suggest that the government also viewed them as commodities to be used to shore up the country's struggling economy in the decades after the Korean War. They say the government not only sponsored classes for them in basic English and etiquette - meant to help them sell themselves more effectively - but also sent bureaucrats to praise them for earning dollars when South Korea was desperate for foreign currency.

The hypocrisy! What makes this particularly awful is the Korean government's insistence for decades that Japan take responsibility for its comfort women atrocities during World War II, while refusing acknowledge its own complicit history in condoning military prostitution.

There is a movement now seeking compensation and an apology for the women, who do not make claims that they were coerced into prostitution by the government, but do say that they were victims of government policies. At this point, I think it's just important that more and more people become aware of this dark chapter in Korea's history, and its continuing legacy.