I wrote this film following an article published in the Korea Herald in 2017 which was then picked up internationally including in the UK, about the high rates of domestic violence in South Korea. The Korea Herald reported that 80% of men admitted abusing their girlfriends.
Asia overall, like much of the world, has a problem with misogyny and spousal abuse but this report was conducted by the Korean Institute of Criminology and I was shocked that so many people were happy to admit to it and didn’t see their behaviour as abuse. I wanted to highlight this issue.
The following is an extract from the Korea Herald article which is here http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170817000805
About 8 in 10 Korean men said they had used violence against romantic partners, a study showed Thursday.
According to a study conducted by the Korean Institute of Criminology, 1,593 of 2,000 Korean men, or 79.7 percent, said they had abused a girlfriend while they were dating.
About 71 percent of those who admitted to a history of dating abuse said they had control over their girlfriends’ personal activities, such as restricting them from meeting friends or keeping them isolated from others, including family members.
Hong Young-oh, the researcher from the KIC who led the study, said the high number of those who had restricted their partners’ movements stems from the deep-rooted patriarchal attitude of Korean men.
“The high number of such actions show that the abusers themselves were not aware of or did not recognize their actions as dating abuse,” said Hong.
“But victims who had their activities restricted by their boyfriends saw it as serious enough to say that they wanted to break up.”
The study also showed that the acceptability of violence, childhood experience of domestic violence and emotional instability were attributed to various types of violent actions by abusers while dating.
Karelia Scott-Daniels
