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Upon the Supreme Court’s Sept. 29 announcement of its verdict on the case of compensation for victims of the US camptown sex trade, plaintiffs and members of women’s groups cheer at a press conference. (Baek So-ah/The Hankyoreh)

The South Korean judicial system has concluded that the state actively encouraged and justified prostitution for the US military while managing “camptowns” (commercial areas near US Army bases) during the country’s authoritarian era.

On Thursday, the second panel of the Supreme Court, under Justice Lee Dong-won, uphold a decision by a lower court that found partly in favor of 95 former women who worked in brothels at US military camptowns who had sued the Korean state, demanding the government to pay them each 10 million won in damages.

During the presidency of Syngman Rhee, the Korean government essentially coordinated prostitution by designating recreational facilities around US military bases and testing sex workers for sexually transmitted diseases two times a week.

The government forced the women to register as prostitutes for the US military and submit to STD testing and mobilized public health workers and the police to forcibly quarantine those who refused to be tested. The women were also given “patriotism classes,” in which they were praised as “patriots earning foreign currency.”

The former camptown women sued the government in 2014 for promoting prostitution for the US military, which they say kept them locked into the camptown sex trade for an extended period, resulting in physical and psychological suffering.

The government countered that it wasn’t obligated to pay damages because the statute of limitations for claiming damages (set at five years for damages resulting from illegal actions) had expired.

Mun Jeong-ju, a former professor at Seoul National University who testified about venereal disease testing for Korea’s camptown women based on her time working at a public health center in Uijeongbu (where a US base is located) in the 90s, speaks at a press conference after the announcement of the court’s verdict on Sept. 29. (Baek So-ah/The Hankyoreh)

In 2017, a district court ruled that the government was only liable for compensating 57 of the plaintiffs. Those were the camptown women who had been quarantined prior to 1977, when an enforcement rule about quarantining people infected with STDs was added to the Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act.

But the following year, an appeals court greatly broadened the state’s liability by ordering the government to pay 3 million won or 7 million won (US$2,100 or $4,900) to all the plaintiffs.

By operating the camptowns, the court found, the state had “justified and encouraged prostitution with the intent of raising the morale of foreign troops stationed [in Korea] and earning foreign currency.”

Upon the Supreme Court’s Sept. 29 announcement of its verdict on the case of compensation for victims of the US camptown sex trade, plaintiffs and members of women’s groups cheer at a press conference. (Kim Gyoung-ho/The Hankyoreh)

“Because of the state’s illegal actions, the plaintiffs suffered psychological harm through the violation of their human dignity or personality rights,” the court said Thursday while upholding the lower court’s decision.

The court also rejected the government’s argument that the statute of limitations had expired.

“These actions correspond to a violation of human rights under the Framework Act on Settling Past Issues for Truth and Reconciliation. Therefore, a request for the state to pay damages for those actions is not subject to the statute of limitations,” the court said.

By Shin Min-jung, staff reporter

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