The aim of this study was to present the direction of support policy for female sex-sellers, especially for middle-aged/old persons to whom the support policy of prostitution casualties has been relatively insufficient. With "the Act on the Punishment...
The aim of this study was to present the direction of support policy for female sex-sellers, especially for middle-aged/old persons to whom the support policy of prostitution casualties has been relatively insufficient. With "the Act on the Punishment of Prostitution Crimes and Protection of Victims thereof" and "the Act on the Punishment of Procuring Prostitution and Associated Acts", a legal foundation of supporting female prostitution casualties has been prepared, resulting in an expansion of the services. However, the current support program is limited to young women, inmates, and partakers in a self-support assembly area project, and a support and protection system for women of diverse generations and special circumstances are in effect insufficient.
Based on a phenomenological study method, the investigator examined the experience and thought of middle-aged/old female sex-sellers to find out their recognition and understanding of the experience, in order to present the direction of intervention for an alterative life. For this, data were collected for a period from February to May in 2007 through in-depth interviews of 16 middle-aged/old female sex-sellers (including direct and indirect interviews) and 5 social activists who having the experience of supporting them.
Study findings show that middle-aged/old female sex-sellers' recognition of prostitution experience is different by their life history and experience. However, they seemingly have anxiety as well as attachment to their life in general. Study findings are as follows:
First, middle-aged/old female sex-sellers by and large regard their place in the family as important and choose their life in the space of prostitution for themselves. And their conditions for prostitution become gradually deteriorated as their age advances. Different from preceding studies on the background with which they get involved in prostitution, 'a family' among various factors is a desperate cause of prostitution for women in their late teens and twenties, as well as in their fifties or above. In addition, with older ages and lawbreaking positions, they are placed in a more deteriorated situation, thus willingly suffering economical loss and discrimination. This situation also makes them take extremely personal measures to exercise their right to protect themselves in a variety of dangerous prostitution relationships, or willingly submit to the danger itself.
Second, middle-aged/old female sex-sellers repeat the comings and goings of prostitution business, live a prolonged life in the space of prostitution, and have a confused sense of attachment and frustration for their life, as their age advances. Comparing to younger women, they abandon prostitution many times by changing or creating business, but they fail to continue the business because of income difference, labor condition difference, insufficient experience, poor resources, and so on. So they come back to prostitution to which they are very familiar with a long-term experience. On the one hand, they stress their subjective choice of prostitution, but on the other hand they willingly submit to its difficulty and sorrows that become worse as their age advances.
Third, middle-aged/old female sex-sellers uniformly desire to abandon their prostitution business, regardless of the concreteness of their plans, and require an obscure but urgent alternative measure. In particular, study participants seemingly regard the closing of Yongsan-brothel as an opportunity for their abandonment of prostitution business and as the turning point of their life. They either emphasize to expand governmental support for more vulnerable women or suggest a reasonable method to narrow the barrier to society. And most of them want to be a socially contributable person in their last part of life.
This study implies that the policy for prostitution casualties must expand to diverse areas, by getting out of the existing policy of which service area is only one―the female sex-selling casualties. In addition, seemingly important in the policy is not the thing to be provided with but the strategy to proceed with. In other words, in case of working out an intervening strategy to provide help to middle-aged/old female sex-sellers, their long-term life in a sex-trading space must be acceptably considered in a special aspect. Rather than expecting a precondition of their revolutionary change of life and abandonment of sex-selling business, middle-aged/old female sex-sellers must be provided with a variety of social experiences and opportunities, in order for them to plan their life positively.