EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7

INTRODUCTION 15
Number of Trafficked Women 18
Smuggling for Sex Work vs. Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation 21
Crime Displacement in Trafficking and Smuggling for Sexual Exploitation 25
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD 29
Research Site 30
Primary Research Strategies: Recruitment and Interviews 32
Supplementary Research Strategies 34
Sampling Design 35
Contacting Subjects and Field Relationship 36
Methods of Data Collection 38
Participant Observation 38
Interviewing 39
Method of Analysis 41
Validity Issues 42
Ethical Issues 43
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS 45
Demographic Characteristics 48
Previous Experience and Motivation 51
TRAFFICKING ORGANIZATION AND CHARACTERISTICS 55
Structural Characteristics 57
Size and Network 57
Roles 63
SEX TRAFFICKING AND SMUGGLING PROCESS 69
Recruitment 70
Trafficking/Smuggling Route 74
Embedded after their arrival to the U.S. 76
TRANSNATIONAL CRIME DISPLACEMENT 79
News Content Analysis 84
Theoretical Explanation on Crime Displacement 92

CONCLUSION 95

REFERENCES CITED 99

Appendix A 107
Appendix B 110

The objective of the study is to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of human trafficking and smuggling for sexual exploitation among Korean women to the United States. The study provides empirical evidence of human trafficking and smuggling of Korean women as an emerging transnational social problem by examining general characteristics of trafficked and smuggled Korean women in the U.S. sex industry, organizational structure of Korean‐based trafficking and smuggling operations in the United States, and dynamics of Korean sex trafficking and the smuggling process. It is also designed to provide a strong empirical and theoretical basis for assessing anti‐trafficking measures and other policy choices. Korea, in this regard, represents a nearly ideal case, given recent policy changes in Korea and the deportation of hundreds of Korean women from the United States in major anti‐trafficking operations. We are particularly concerned with understanding the impact of specific policy choices on transnational displacement. As a result of analyzing news with a sex trafficking and smuggling component from 2004 to 2009, the study also provides a theoretical framework of crime displacement. We believe that current policies have actually exacerbated, rather than helped to ameliorate, human trafficking and smuggling for sexual exploitation.
The objectives of the proposed research are achieved primarily through a qualitative approach using direct interviews with owners, transporters, trafficked and/or smuggled women in the U.S. sex industry. This approach is designed to provide in‐depth and firsthand knowledge of the operation, dynamics, and conditions of the trafficking and smuggling process between the U.S. and Korea, and of the Korean‐based prostitution industry in the U.S. Recruitment strategies are employed, including self‐identification through newspaper advertisements and using the “snowballing” strategy. Direct interviews with participant‐subjects are supplemented with analysis of secondary sources of newspaper reports and U.S. federal court documents.
 
Findings
After the data collection and analysis were completed, the findings were separated into four categories: characteristics of study participants, trafficking organizations and characteristics, sex trafficking and smuggling process, and transnational crime displacement. Highlights of these areas follow.
 
Characteristics of Study Participants:
A total of 22 participants were interviewed: owners/managers (N = 4), non‐trafficked women (N = 12), and trafficked women (N = 6). We differentiate the non‐trafficked women from the trafficked women based on the 2005 Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific’s definition and distinction of trafficking and smuggling: a) an action, consisting of recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons; b) by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or position of vulnerability, giving or receiving payments or benefits to achieve consent of a person having control over another; and c) for the purpose of exploitation such as forced labor or services, the exploitation of prostitution, or certain forms of sexual exploitation.
Characteristics of the participants included age, level of English, immigration status, marital status, previous experience in sex industry, and motivation.
 
Most of the non‐trafficked and trafficked women were in their 30s and 40s while owners and managers were in their 50s and 60s.
The group of owners/managers tends to have much higher English proficiency scores compared to the trafficked and non‐trafficked groups.
All four participants in the owner/manager group maintained legitimate immigration status (permanent residency or U.S. citizenship), while eleven had a tourist visa and seven had undocumented status in both the non‐trafficked and trafficked groups.
Twenty participants (91%) reported their status as single or divorced while two participants answered their marital status as still married.
Seven (38.9%) out of 18 non‐trafficked and trafficked women stated that they had also done sex‐related work before as prostitutes, or massage parlor employees.
Eighteen (90%) out of 20 participants indicated their primary reason to come to the U.S. was to make money. Recommendation from brokers or friends/relatives also affected their decision to migrate; many of them were told that they could make much more money in the U.S.A.
 
Trafficking Organization and Characteristics
U.S. federal indictments and interview data were examined to determine the organized nature of Korean sex trafficking and the smuggling operation business in the United States.
 
The federal indictment case with 41 defendants showed five middlemen/transporters connected with 30 independent owners and two managers of brothels as well as four illegal money transmitters. Owners and illegal money transmitters ran their own respective businesses. Thirty independent owners had operated various prostitution businesses throughout the Northeast region of the U.S.
The size of the middlemen group varied from one person to many. They acted as a conduit for communications between and among the prostitution business owners and Korean women in the U.S. sex industry. Primarily through these communications, they arranged and transported Korean women working as prostitutes throughout the Northeastern U.S. They also assisted brothel owners and Korean women working in brothels in transmitting proceeds from their brothel activities to Korea through unlicensed money transmitters.
The size of the prostitute business was three to eleven workers. Almost all the prostitute businesses were run by a single female owner. Some owners had multiple operations in different locations. The federal investigation case indicated that one owner operated four brothels. One owner who we interviewed ran nine massage parlors at different establishments in one city.
The size of an illegal money transmitter group was typically one or two. Wives of the middlemen and the illegal money transmitters often participated since each transaction required a large sum of cash (from $4,000 up to $100,000 per transaction) to be delivered.
 
Sex Trafficking and Smuggling Process
The data analysis shows the dynamics of a specific smuggling and trafficking movement in the transnational sex trade among Korean women to the U.S. as follows:
 
The recruitment of Korean women for prostitution in the United States appears to depend heavily on the Internet and print advertising, as well as word of mouth.
Twelve out of 18 participants (66.7%) stated they came to the U.S. through brokers.
Domestic trafficking organizations send women and overseas organizations receive them. Domestic organizations’ responsibilities include recruiting women, counterfeiting passports or other fraudulent documents to obtain visas, and sending them off or departing with the women from Korea through harbors and airports. U.S.‐based Korean organizations’ responsibilities include receiving women, transporting them from arrival points to final destinations, and running the sex trade business with them.
The typical trafficking and smuggling route reached from South Korea to Japan, then to Canada or Mexico, and finally to the U.S. In addition to Japan being the first transit nation for the trafficking and smuggling of Korean women, Canada and Mexico were also major transit nations.
Five participants mentioned that they worked at various sex trade businesses in Japan. Four participants mentioned that they used Canada as a transit nation while one Korean-Chinese came to the U.S. via Mexico.
By the time the women were taken into the U.S., they owed the recruiters and other brokers a large debt, ranging from $5000 to $40,000 depending on the trafficking/smuggling route. They were typically placed in the custody of a network of transporters/middlemen who drove them to several prostitution businesses.
 
Transnational Crime Displacement
Through findings of crime displacement in human trafficking and smuggling for sexual exploitation based on 408 newspaper articles, the study introduces a theoretical displacement model and applies the findings to the model, so as to improve our understanding of current anti‐trafficking policy and of control efforts.
 
Out of the 408 articles, 270 (66.1%) clearly related to either tactical or transnational spatial displacement. The number of articles relating to tactical displacement was 174, while transnational spatial displacement was identified in 96 articles.
Within tactical displacement, we identified 32 different forms of sex trade and 395 counts of tactical displacements from the year 2004 to the year 2009. (The numbers exceed the total number of news articles because more than one case of tactical displacement can be found in a news article). The Internet (n=67, 17%) was the most frequently identified form of new sex trade. This is followed by massage parlor business establishments (n=65, 16.4%), residential locations (n=47, 11.9%), RestTel establishments (n=42, 10.6%), and room saloons (n=37, 9.4%).
To measure transnational spatial displacement in our study, the study examined news articles containing overseas sex trade involving Korean women subsequent to the 2004 Act. The most frequently cited country is the United States (n=42, 23.2%), followed by Japan (n=35, 19.3%), Australia and New Zealand together (n=28, 15.5%), Southeast Asia (n=19, 10.5%), China (n=15, 8.2%), Taiwan (n=14, 7.7%), and Canada (n=12, 6.6%).
 
No previous research on human trafficking and smuggling for sexual exploitation has focused on the specific movement between South Korea and the U.S.―two relatively wealthy and developed countries. South Korea’s relatively high level of development, in particular, raises crucial questions. The Korean case suggests, most generally, that national poverty and other related macro‐social factors (such as global inequality and social and political instability) typically identified as “causes” of human trafficking and smuggling are neither necessary nor sufficient. From a theoretical perspective, then, the relative prosperity of South Korea encourages, even demands, a shift in analytical focus to legal and policy‐based factors. This project examined a range of such factors within the specific context of the trafficking and smuggling movement between South Korea and the U.S.
 
The findings presented here can be used to improve our understanding of human trafficking and smuggling, and provide a much‐needed and critical assessment of major policy responses to human trafficking. The information concerning offender and victim characteristics should be used in law enforcement training. The picture that this study paints of trafficking organizations and their sex business operations should be used to increase proactive measures that law enforcement can use to combat human sex trafficking and smuggling, including investigation, prevention, detection, and prosecution. Law enforcement executives and policy makers will be able to use this information to develop policy, allocate resources, advocate training, and build transnational law enforcement partnerships.