hankyoreh

Security officers with the Seoul Metro patrol a Line 2 train at Dangsan Station on Aug. 20 after on Aug. 19 an armed man injured passengers on a Line 2 train. To step up their security presence, the Seoul Metro is having 55 security officers carrying tear gas guns patrol trains in pairs. (Yonhap)

Women in South Korea are expressing growing anxieties and anger after a woman in her 30s who was assaulted in broad daylight on a hiking trail in Seoul’s Sillim neighborhood passed away from her injuries.

Increasingly, women are voicing fears that they are no longer safe even on city streets and hiking trails. Politicians have also come under fire for neglecting to protect women’s safety, especially after revelations that the hiking trail incident was an instance of “femicide” with evidence that the perpetrator planned ahead of time to commit sexual assault.

“In a world where women are raped and killed while walking the streets in broad daylight and where seemingly each day brings news of more violent crimes against women, I don’t know what or how we can things make safer to prevent these things from happening,” said Cha Yeong-ju, a 30-year-old resident of Seoul’s Yongsan District, on Saturday.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so threatened in my life,” she added.

Oh Jin-mi, a 37-year-old resident of Dongtan, Gyeonggi Province, said, “When I’m walking with my school-age daughter after work, I already feel like we have to go to places where there are a lot of people. But now with people going on rampages with weapons on busy streets, I just don’t know what to do anymore.”

“I’m worried because it seems like we’re getting more and more isolated and suspicious of each other,” she said.

Speaking Sunday at the funeral hall where the woman killed in Sillim was being laid to rest, the victim’s brother tearfully asked, “What are we supposed to do when [crimes] happen to people whether they’re walking on busy streets or on hiking trails?”

Following the 34-year-old victim’s death on Saturday, police amended the charges against the perpetrator, identified by his surname Choi, to rape and homicide. Choi is suspected of having planned to commit the crime in advance, after explaining during questioning that he had purchased brass knuckles online in April with the intent of committing rape.

Revelations that a project to create “safe streets for women” in Seoul’s Gwanak District — where the incident occurred — was abolished due to active opposition by one district council member have sparked growing condemnation of the member in question.

A critic of the district’s “women-friendly city” policies, a People Power Party-affiliated council member named Choi In-ho said in a December 2022 YouTube video promoting his legislative activities that the “women’s safe return streets” project had “left men facing a reality where they receive no protections.”

“We have cut the full 74 million won [budget] for the women’s safe return street project and increased the ‘safe side street’ project [with the same funds],” he said at the time.

A look at the transcript of a meeting of Gwanak District’s special committee on budget and accounts on Dec. 19, 2022, shows Jeong Gyeong-sun, the head of the district’s childcare and women division, saying, “Urban renewal projects apply to the overall area, but we work together with the police station to select areas where crimes frequently occur for designation [as women’s safe return streets].” Despite her explanation of the difference between the two projects, she was unable to protect the budget for the program that arranged escorts for women to walk home safely, particularly at night.

Within the span of the day on Sunday (as of 3 pm) around 730 posts had gone up on a public message board on the district council’s website calling for Choi In-ho to resign.

“When we demand that measures be taken to counter misogynist crimes, the political world calls it ‘reverse discrimination against men,’ essentially treating them [our requests] as though they’re part of the gender conflict,” commented Noh Seon-i, an activist with the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center. “It’s reasons like these that the already-insufficient measures for women’s safety have been further cut.”

The victim’s surviving family has requested that her attacker be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Speaking to the Hankyoreh at the funeral hall where the woman’s wake was taking place, one bereaved family member said, “Justice will only be served once he’s given the maximum penalty granted by law through a fair enforcement of the law.”

Korean law stipulates imprisonment for an indefinite term or a minimum of 10 years for those convicted of bodily injury resulting from rape, but convictions of murder associated with rape carry a sentence of “death or imprisonment with labor for an indefinite term.”

By Kim Ga-yoon, staff reporter; Chai Yoon-tae, staff reporter; Park Da-hae, staff reporter; Park Ji-young, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]