국회 속기록에 나타난 여성정책 시각 : A. 매매춘(賣買春)에 대하여

Perspectives on Prostitution in the Korean Legislature : 1948~1989

This study aims at exploring the changes in the approaches and attitudes of the legislative and the administrative (Government) bodies toward prostitution. In particular, a focus is placed on the questions of how they perceived the issue and what measures they suggested in the context of national policy. For doing this, the study analyzed the discussions on prostitution made by members of the National Assembly reflected in the stenographic records, from the Constitutional Assembly to the 13th National Assembly, 1948~1989. The total 83 cases of speech were categorized into four types, namely, the consevative, progressive, instrumental, and ambiguous types. These categories represent the political stands of the top politicians and administrators toward the thorny issue of prostitution. The findings can be summarized as follows: First, over the 42 sessions, our politicians showed interest in practicing prostitution of the conventional type more than any other types including high class yo-chung prostitution for US military personnel in Korea and kisaeng tourism, although these received varied degrees of attention. Their attitude toward the former was overwhelmingly conservative, in accordance with the change of societal and political atmosphere. Secondly, by types of the political stand, the ambiguous type outnumbered the others, 47%; the conservative and the progressive types were equally 23%; and the instrumental type was 7%. Comparing the attitudes of the legislators with the adminstrators, the conservative and instrumental type speeches appeared about equally frequently. However, in the case of the ambiguous type the administrators showed a higher ratio, and in the progressive type that of the legislators was higher. It was interpreted that the ambiguous and instrumental type speeches were essentially in the same family with the conservative type and, therefore, that the overall trend of the discussions on prostitution was predominantly conservative. The specific trend by period was examined by dividing the 42 sessions into three periods, the 1st and 2nd Republics (1948~1961), the 3rd and 4th Republics (1961~1980), and the 5th and 6th Republics (1981~1989), in order to grasp the change in policies on prostitution. During the first period of the 1st and 2nd Republics, the discussions regarding prostitution at standing committees were numbered 26 cases. Among these 46% were in the ambiguous type, followed by the conservative type (27%), while the progressive type was only 15%. The legislators showed slightly more frequently progressive attitudes than the administrators. The focal issues in this period were unlicensed prostitutes, high class yo-chung and prostitution for US military personnel. On the problems of unlicensed prostitutes, their discussions were mostly conservative, and criticized the rampant situation of illegal prostitutes resulted from the abolition of the licensed prostitution system. Suggestions were made to take some action for enlightenment and proper guidance of prostitues as well as for a rigid enforcement of control on them. They also criticized high class yo-chung mainly in terms of the breakdown of societal spirit, but when it came to the actual control of yo-chung, their attitude was very much lenient. As to the prostitution for US military personnel, the discussions were marked by their instrumental nature to the extent which they even encouraged that sort of prostitution as a positive measure. In this aspect the administrators shared the same opinion with the legislators. The number of speeches analyzed for the 3rd and 4th Republics was 46. The general trend during the second period was not much changes, except that of the administrators' ambiguous responses increased to 69%, while the progressive type was further reduced to 5%. On the other hand, the progressive speeches of the legislators increased to 30%. In other words, the legislator sbecame gradually progressive, while the