American nationalism
During the early 1990s, the prostitutes became a symbol of South Korean anti-American nationalism. In 1992, there were about 18,000 registered and 9,000 unregistered South Korean women around U.S. military bases. Korean government figures for 1992 were about 1,129 prostitutes working around U.S. military bases, and around 926 in 1993 and around 8,000 (mostly foreign women) in 1995.