http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MB23Dg01.htmlWhen it was leaked in South Korea last week that Kim In-hye, a popular soprano, television celebrity and music professor at the prestigious Seoul National University, had habitually used violence against her students over the past 10 years - as well as mobilizing them for private functions such as her mother's birthday - media outlets quipped that she had used her students as a "pleasure squad".
The term had been used in Korea to describe groups of attractive young women enlisted to provide entertainment and even sexual services for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his top aides.
Little was known outside North Korea about the pleasure squad, known as Gippeumjo. For years it was such a well-kept secret that some analysts even doubted its existence. But information has gradually emerged through the testimony of defectors such as Lee Il-nam, a nephew of Kim Jong-il who attended the same private school in Geneva as the leader's son, Kim Jong-nam, and later defected to South Korea.
-snip about how N.K. murdered him because of his book revealing the dear leaders sexual slaves-
In 1972, Kim Jong-il began to throw parties for his close associates. At first, they were casual gatherings of only men, who mainly drank alcohol together. But later, as from 1974 Kim was internally confirmed to become the next leader and set about consolidating his power base, female partners began to accompany them. The pleasure squad was divided into three teams: a "satisfaction team", which provided sexual services; a "happiness team", which provided massages, and a "dancing and singing team".
They were normally recruited from the graduating classes of art schools at the age of 18. After being chosen, they went through training to perform their duties immaculately. For example, "Those who were chosen to provide massages, received three to six months of professional massage training in Hong Kong or Taiwan," said Lee.
Their clients were not just Kim Jong-il, but included the senior leadership circle. They were managed by the state and served as military cadre status and retired when they reached the age of 25. At that time, they married one of Kim Jong-il's guards and usually lived in a special compound so that they had little interaction with locals. That was a way to preserve the secrecy of Kim Jong-il's private life.
-very long snip of his sexcapades-
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N.K. women - used and abused