A high-rise apartment complex stands in Gangdong District, Seoul, April 21. The area once housed one of Seoul's largest red light districts before its closure in 2020 and subsequent redevelopment. Korea Times photo by Park Ung
A towering high-rise apartment complex rises over a strip of restaurants, clinics and cafes, just a 10-minute walk from Cheonho Station in Seoul's Gangdong District.
Park, 46, who asked to be identified only by her surname, remembers a different place. She spent the last eight years of her life there as a sex worker in the area, which was home to more than 200 brothels at its peak before being shuttered in 2020 and redeveloped into the complex that stands today. Cheonho-dong once housed one of Seoul's best-known red-light districts, along with Miari Texas in Seongbuk District and Cheongnyangni 588 in Dongdaemun District.
“I'd look at the map now and think, that was my room, there used to be a corner store there,” Park told The Korea Times. “I thought to myself, all these new homes going up and not one of them is mine.”
Prostitution was first criminalized in Korea in 1961, but enforcement was significantly strengthened with the enactment of the Special Act on Prostitution in 2004. Under this law, people who buy sex can face up to one year in prison or fines of up to 3 million won ($2,049), while brothel operators can be sentenced to up to seven years in prison or fined up to 70 million won.
Even after the enforcement of the special act, some red-light districts continued business. But the size and numbers of "customers" were reduced amid changing public awareness about prostitution and emergence of online channels to buy sex. The Seoul Metropolitan Government's push for redevelopment of major red-light districts since the early 2000s also gained traction.
In March, Miari Texas was closed for good after 70 years, and large-scale redevelopment is already underway. With it went the last of Seoul's best-known red-light districts; Cheongnyangni's had been the first, with demolition beginning in the mid-2000s and a 65-story residential tower now standing in its place.
The red-light districts are gone, but the women who worked in them were given little to no assistance in the wake of redevelopment. Those who lived through the closures and the people trying to help them say the demolitions offered them no fresh start.
After Cheonho-dong closed, Park moved to a brothel in Yeongdeungpo District, then to Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province before moving again to an adult entertainment venue in Songpa District, continuing to work in the trade for roughly three more years.
Most of the women she knew didn't fare any better.
Source: Korea Times News
