'Sexual abuse victims need courage'
By Lee Kyung-min
Center for Media Responsibility and Human Rights Director Yoon Yeo-jean / Courtesy of Yoon Yeo-jean
Korean society should encourage more victims of sexual abuse to speak up about their innermost pain without fear of being judged or their motives questioned, a human rights advocate said Friday.
Center for Media Responsibility and Human Rights Director Yoon Yeo-jean said many victims are reluctant to publicly share their stories in Korea, a country long dominated by Confucianism and patriarchy, both of which have taught women the virtue of staying silent and obedient.
“The #MeToo movement opened the floodgates and is helping many women to raise a fundamental question about a structural problem caused by the imbalance of power,” she said.
Their voices deserve to be heard, Yoon added, as coming forward takes a lot of courage especially in Korea where the first question a victim faces is “Let's say you go public with this. Do you really think you will be able to handle what is to come?”
This is a question, she added, premised on an absurd supposition that victims should be somehow prepared to deal with and endure harsh criticism oftentimes unrelated to the incident itself including attacks on family members and uncalled-for prying into personal lives.
Many perpetrators of the prevalent-yet-long-unaddressed crime have managed to avoid any consequences thus far, precisely because of such a distorted social “norm” which has taught women shame, instead of courage to step up and call out the crime demanding justice, she said.
“In many cases, people point fingers at victims by criticizing how she dressed, how she behaved when she was with male colleagues, or whether she liked to hang out late into the night with male friends, all of which is to claim that she somehow brought the sexual harassment or assault on herself or at least contributed to it, which is a patriarchal mindset at its worst that needs to be fundamentally challenged.”
Misleading media reports requires immediate re-contextualization with more stringent scrutiny towards protecting victims not objectifying them in what could trivialize their experience as a mere target of public “voyeurism,” she added.
“How the media portray a victim highly affects the impressionable minds of the public, which is why the writers and news producers should take a cautious approach when reporting sexual abuse victims' story.”
In the case of Kim Ji-eun, a personal secretary to former South Chungcheong Governor An Hee-jung, who said she was raped and sexually harassed by him on multiple occasions, some media reports ran stories focusing on why Kim stayed as An's assistant even after the first alleged assault.
“Some stories questioned whether it was appropriate for Kim to stay as his secretary knowing that she had to closely assist him 24 hours, seven days a week, a point trying to blame Kim for simply doing her highly-coveted job. This helps An deny liability as he could argue it was implicit that Kim was aware what the job might entail including sexual abuse.”
The right argument is for An, the superior who had absolute power and authority over his subordinate, never to engage in any inappropriate behavior, she added, not defending him by saying “Things of that nature could happen between a man and a woman.”
Another problem stemming from the same mistaken mindset, she pointed out, was media stories trying to establish a false causation between the #MeToo movement and men justifying isolating women in the workplace, in what could be a “convenient excuse for men to discriminate against women.”
Some news stories ran how karaoke rooms are closing their business after many sexual harassments or assaults occur there, and others ran how men were becoming increasingly uncomfortable about women colleagues out of fear that their “well-intentioned” behavior and remarks could be interpreted as sexual harassment.
“The storylines all have the same objective: blaming the victims by trying to falsely link the two separate incidents that have no relevance. The stories should help educate men _ in some cases women _ about what they consider perfectly normal behavior and remarks could hurt and dehumanize others.”
Going to karaoke is fine. So is drinking at an after-work get-together, she said, as long as people remain careful about how they behave.