After a few days of sightseeing and trying out the local cuisine, we sat down at a coffee shop near her home to talk about her experiences over the last few years. The following is a transcript of our conversation, which Ms Lee authorised me to publish. Please note that the copyright for this transcript lies with Research Project Korea and is not licensed under a Creative Commons License. While Korean police lament the lack of sufficient resources to clamp down on prostitution businesses, police crackdowns and undercover sting operations are actually more frequent than the public believes.
During the five years that Ms Lee has worked in different cities across South Korea, she has never encountered anyone being forced to sell sex, which is not to say that working conditions or clients are always pleasant. While there are people under the age of 18 who sell sex in South Korea, all sex workers Ms Lee encountered were between their 20s and 50s. Matthias: How long has it been now since you started to work as a sex worker and where did you work before moving to Daegu?
Matthias: Why did you move to Daegu? Matthias: How did you two meet? Hyeri: We first met on Twitter and later got to know each other more over the phone. I thought he was quite cool and we often happened to agree on quite many things, including our personal relationships. Whenever either of us felt down, we called each other to cheer the other one up. Actually, I felt suicidal a number of times and he always happened to call then to check in on me, as if he knew.
It felt like a miracle. Matthias: What made you feel suicidal? Hyeri: I was just so tired of terrible clients and of sting operations by the police in Incheon, Bucheon and Taean. What would you respond if someone said that to you?
Hyeri: I would probably just laugh. Incheon and Bucheon were the worst. The police was around almost all the time, day and night. There were many crackdowns but I managed to escape them. I left before they could arrest me.
