Churches Thanked For Gift To Korea

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30497, 20 July 1964, Page 9

Churches Thanked For Gift To Korea

The National Y.W.C.A. of Korea has written thanking the National Council of Churches for £lOOO which the council has given towards their prostitute rehabilitation centre.

“You will never know how timely this gift was,” the letter said. “When the project was started a year and a a half ago we purchased property with a gift from the World Council of Churches. But so many women are being sent to us by the police we have since had to repair and extend on old building,”

The gift, it was said, would be used for labour costs in the repairs and extensions. The rehabilitation centre was Introduced after the Military Government, in 1961, introduced sweeping reforms to rid the country of prostitution, which had already been illegal since the end of the Second World War but had been carried on “underground,” mainly because of traditional cultural patterns which had for centuries accepted prostitution, and economic conditions in Korea. Since the rehabilitation centre was opened 225 women between the ages of 17 and 25 had been received. At the centre they are taught dressmaking, knitting, beauty culture, typing and school subjects. Other letters received thanking the N.C.C. for donations have come from the East Pakistan Christian Council (£1000); the Christian Medical Association of ■ India (£lOOO towards tuberculosis control); the United Church of Christ, Japan (£5OO towards agricultural study); the Presbyterian Church . of the New Hebrides (£lOO to establish a Christian book shop); and the Christian Medical Assoication of West Pakistan (£250 towards the Tb programme).