Andy Kondrat
January 6, 2009 | 9:24 pm EST
Giulia:
An article in today’s New York Times reports that a group of sex-workers-turned-activists claim that the South Korean government and the United States military of encouraged the sex trade near military bases from the 1960s through the 1980s.
While most of the women were not forced into prostitution, the government did instruct the prostitute with English language lessons and etiquette training with hopes to use the sex trade to bring in foreign currency.
“Our government was one big pimp for the U.S. military,” one of the women, Kim Ae-ran, 58, said in a recent interview….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. -NY Times
Gross.
Read the full article by clicking here.
Sadly human trafficking is still practiced today. takepart and visit The Global Fund For Women at http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/cms/hot-topics/trafficking/trafficking.html for more on this disgusting issue and how to help stop it.
As I’m sure you’re well aware, not only the United States is suffering from an economic downturn (Iceland, for example, has basically gone belly-up). Now, a lot of people think that green jobs are the future of the economy, and though we may not have really done much on that front in the States yet, South Korea has decided that it’s through environmentalism that they’ll save their economy.
The Associated Press (via MSNBC) reports that South Korea is going to invest $38 billion over the next four years on environmental projects to help boost the flagging economy. From the article:
Energy conservation, recycling, carbon reduction, flood prevention, development around the country’s four main rivers and maintaining forest resources are among projects to be pursued under the plan, approved at a Cabinet meeting.
The goal is to create 960,000 new jobs over the course of the “Green New Deal,” 140,000 of which will be created this year.
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Even stranger than South Korea’s criminal justice system, which fined a pair of parents’ when their teenaged son raped a child, is the BBC News’ description of the rape:
The 18-year-old, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, raped a local seven-year-old girl in 2006.
What does ADHD have to do with it?
It’s hard to tell if the article is implying he’s a rapist because he has ADHD or if they’re just adding it in as a detail. But either way, it reads as though it’s an excuse for his sexual assaulting ways.
Even if the rapist had a more severe mental illness like schizophrenia, it’s an inappropriate descriptor within an article about raping a 7-year-old. Mental illness, obviously, is no excuse for rape. Nor is not being “raised right,” as the South Korean criminal justice system implies.
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Trakr, the hero rescue dog who sniffed out survivors from the ruins of the World Trade Center after 9/11, has won a competition to be cloned. The German Shepherd was picked as the “most clone-worthy” dog in a contest presenting dog owners with an opportunity to clone their pet, free of charge by the California company BioArts International. Trakr and his owner James Symington were among the first search and rescue teams to arrive on the smoldering site of Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. The pair also found the last human survivor at the scene of the disaster, located under 30 feet of wreckage.
The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Want to learn our top eco-kinky tips for ‘greening up’ your sex life? How about the top 10 ways to take action against AIDS? Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!
Katie:
Annie Lennox & Top 10 Ways to Take Action Against AIDS
Somewhere Over the Rainbow: American Idol & Yip Harburg
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Nicole:
Top 10 Ways to ‘Green Up’ Your Sex Life
Top 10 Global Warming Myths Debunked
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Gina:
Boarding Gate’s Empty Adventure of Capitalism
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Say Hello to Our Guest Bloggers!
Jon Popham wrote:
Young At Heart Hits the Silver Screen
Andy Kondrat wrote:
Immigration is one of the more complicated issues facing Americans these days and sadly we don’t see or hear about it very often. Below is a list of 10 great films that explore immigration. Some are more serious documentaries while others are narratives that incorporate some of the more human and historic issues of immigration.
So enjoy my list of the Top 10 Immigration Films and if you’re in the mood to see one in theaters this weekend be sure to go see The Visitor, a great little film that explores how an American college professor and a young immigrant couple grapple with the treatment of immigrants and the legal process post-9/11. It opens on Friday (4/11) so check it out and learn more at it’s Takepart website.
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1. Well Founded Fear : An unprecedented inside look at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), award-winning filmmakers Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini take their cameras behind locked doors, where bureaucrats decide the fates of thousands of asylum-seekers each year. To be granted asylum, applicants must demonstrate a “well-founded fear” that their lives would be endangered were they to be deported.
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Smoke spewing from China’s factories is wafting across the Sea of Japan and coating Japan’s trees with a layer of contaminants similar to the acid rain that’s ruined forests in Europe. “Hana-boro”–the little crystals of ice that cling to Japan’s tree branches in winter–used to be sparkling white. Now, a noxious blend of vehicle exhaust and pollution from China’s coal-burning power plants has turned the hana-boro brown, according to Japanese news service Asahi Shimbun.
And that’s just one kind of “transboundary pollutant” that’s arriving uninvited from China and fouling Japan’s environment. Untreated sewage effluent from China’s cities is wreaking havoc with marine life in the Sea of Japan, promoting the growth of microorganisms that have led to an explosion of huge Echizen jellyfish. These “tentacled giants” first began appearing off the coast of Japan in 2002, and are a terrible problem for fishermen, causing “extensive damage to nets and to hauls themselves,” Asahi Shimbun reports.
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