A female university student jumped to her death leaving a suicide note complaining she was sexually harassed during a "membership training" field trip.
The student, identified only as Jeong, 21, was found dead in a parking lot of an apartment complex by a security guard, Sunday, according to the Gwangju Seobu Police Station.
Her family claimed that Jeong, a sophomore at a university in Gwangju, told them she was molested during the gathering last week.
"She went on a trip with her classmates last week and called her father during night saying she was sexually harassed," a police officer said.
The article goes on to say students were playing a drinking game called "zombie" (좀비게임) and that she says she was inappropriately touched.
Korean-language sources amplify that by saying it was three men and 17 women playing, and that they followed the game with watching porn. The Chosun Ilbo says she died at 삼익아파트 in Hwajeong-dong, and that she was an art student at Chosun University. However, a follow-up article, based on comments written by Ms. Jeong's friend on Cyworld, says it wasn't "sexual harassment" but rape by the three men, and goes on to talk about the games that night and the university's response to the suicide and the allegations.
26 comments:
Disgusting. I wish more schools would take a cue from their American counterparts and use these deaths — and make no mistake, drinking deaths during various forms of hazing are an annual outcome — to crack down on organizational binge drinking.
That this one was not a chemical death is irrelevant. It was a direct — and even foreseeable — outcome of the behavior that stems from chemical impairment by the same source.
I would be more concerned with cracking down on sexual harassment and the social stigma of being a female who was "raped". Group drinking is a part of the Korean culture, getting anyone to seriously listen to the thought of putting a stop to it isn't gonna happen.
Plus she killed herself more out of shame then anything alcohol related. Remove the shame part of that equation has a bigger effect then removing the second or third level effects of the drinking.
I always thought that the term "membership training," sounded a bit communist. Couple that with the fact that membership training events for academic colleges present them selves as being mandatory and the Korean culture of obeying people older than you (even if they are retarded) then you have a toxic mix that makes this kind of thing happen. Kind of reminds me of cases in co-ed military schools where female cadets would face sexual harassment from their C.O.s and then have no one to report the offenses to.
palladin wrote:
I would be more concerned with cracking down on sexual harassment and the social stigma of being a female who was "raped".
That's an overriding issue, but forcing sŏnbae to get shit-faced is, in many circles, done with the intent of sexual harassment or worse. For this issue it is directly putting vulnerable people in harm's way.
Group drinking is a part of the Korean culture, getting anyone to seriously listen to the thought of putting a stop to it isn't gonna happen.
Except that it does. While there is no shortage of groups or companies that still engage in this, there are plenty that have curtailed it or eliminated it. I've worked for several companies and attended one school where these things went from mandatory to optional, and in some cases (in some departments) disappeared altogether.
It can be done, and is being done.
Plus she killed herself more out of shame then anything alcohol related. Remove the shame part of that equation has a bigger effect then removing the second or third level effects of the drinking.
The binge drinking situation was a circumstance in which it happened, without which it likely would not have happened. These MT situations force people who do not drink, don't want to drink, can't handle themselves or others when they drink, etc., to be placed around people with poor judgement and sexist ulterior motives essentially without choice.
'Membership training' doesn't sound communist to me - it sounds unabashedly fascistic, and the kind of atavistic ideological pressganging that Korea really ought to be more hand-wringingly ashamed of.
What is the university's response to the suicide and the allegations?
I HATE MT. Every year students come back with broken bones, scratches all over them and some never return :(
MT is really no better or worse than sorority/fraternity culture in America. It is neither communist nor fascist and much more related to social pressures. For some, it changes their lives for the better and gives them friendships that last a lifetime. For far too many, the results are disasterous, rape and alcoholism only the tip of the iceberg.
I've been on MTs as an adult with my swing dance club and while there is social pressure to drink and go crazy, since it's all adults, no one does anything they don't want to do. The problem with college MTs is that freshmen in uni lack any such backbone. And here, I do NOT mean only Korean freshmen.
A solution might be something like the support and empowerment workshops unis in the U.S. host to help those who have been victimized by frats/sors deal with their issues so they don't end up killing themselves. This would require a Korean cultural shift because Koreans see counseling as shameful and don't think of suicide as preventable, but rather as the natural outcome of extreme sadness or shame.
To me, that is what is tragic about this story. Not MTs. Not the culture of drinking. Not even the abhorrent understanding of what constitutes sexual "harassment" vs. assault. All of those are issues that need addressing. But here, it is the mistaken attitudes about suicide and its causes that are really to blame. Clearly this girl tried to get help (talking to her friends and such), but lacked any such resources.
For the record, I think American fraternity/sorority hazing is deeply suspect too.
The act of "membership training," isn't communist, but I always felt that the terminology was communist. That said I agree strongly with Palladin and Diana E.S.
Membership training is a lot like fraternity and sorority hazing, but in my experience it wasn't tied to some kind of group like a Fraternity or sorority, it was tied to the student's college major. Even though participation in MT events is optional, non participation would get someone branded with the term "traitor." Which is kind of unfair since a person might just want to go to school to study veterinary medicine, and might not want to go drinking with a bunch of idiots every Wednesday night.
There is also the case too of how many Korean colleges are set up. Often times even a major isn't optional if the student didn't have the correct score on the college entrance exam. (Often times too Korean parents choose the major for the student, too many times I worked with people who said that they wanted to do one thing but their moms told them to become teachers.)
With all of this lack of choice it might be reasonable to understand how committing suicide after having the horrible experience of being raped might seem like the only thing that a person can control in their lives since it is probably unlikely that reporting the case would result in justice for the victim. (It's also likely that if the girl reported the rape and the guy went to prison, her classmates might ostracize her.)
At any rate, what happened really, really sucks.
3gyup said "(It's also likely that if the girl reported the rape and the guy went to prison, her classmates might ostracize her.)"
On top of that... I seem to remember reading something a while back about a group of high school boys who raped a high school girl repeatedly and videotaped it... or alleged that they had. When the girl finally blew the whistle the mom's of the rapists called her evil for ruining their poor son's lives.
A lot more needs to change than drinking culture or MTs... there needs to be a paradigm shift away from men doing whatever the please and women baring it with a smile. When my coteacher's drunk husband and his workmates come home from the noraebangs smelling of cheap hooker at 2am she gets out of bed and makes them a fruit plate. It freaks me out that none of these women stand up for themselves.
binge drinking + hazing + having to obey people older than you + misogyny + shame + no counseling/therapy culture = disaster waiting to happen. there are so many issues wrapped up in this one incident and it's really sad.
Family: molested
Friend: raped
Newspaper: sexually harassed
Police: sexually harassed
The police seem to downplay the incident! Is any law enforced in this country?
Sad. I always hate hearing about stories like this. Such a waste of life, especially for situations that could have been prevented. Above all the other points mentioned I hope to see responsibility and wisdom coming from older members of society rather than have them take advantage of the social hierarchy.
The police seem to downplay the incident! Is any law enforced in this country?
Several years ago some high school boys gang raped two female students. The cops tried to cover it up, believing it would bring shame to the town. The girls were made to feel like the criminals and their parents were harassed.
Over on this side of the pacific pond, a bunch of young christian Koreans in Toronto gang raped females and at least one under ager. Their pictures and full names were in the papers for several days. I betcha they were entirely surprised by our unique cultural approach to raping minors.
Over on this side of the pacific pond, a bunch of young christian Koreans in Toronto gang raped females and at least one under ager.
Allegedly. The accusations that were flying from both sides only told me there was WAY more to the story that was not being aired. The whole thing sounded sordid and cultish.
Over on this side of the pacific pond, a bunch of young christian Koreans in Toronto gang raped females and at least one under ager.
Allegedly. The accusations that were flying from both sides only told me there was WAY more to the story that was not being aired. The whole thing sounded sordid and cultish.
Indeed alleged. But I mean they have video. Of sex with an underage girl. Whatever way you slice it, that's simply illegal.
What have you heard the other way, notably in regards to the allegations:
Several young Korean males belonging to a small Toronto Korea church gang raped (ie non consensual sex)a small number of Korean females and videos some of their acts, including one who was under 18.
In any regard, it's clear Canadian authorities and the Canadian media treat these stories very differently. Canadian cops don't try to hush it up and the media has the right to print the creeps' photos and full names.
I believe the pastor of the church is to appear in court mid April-ish.
||"MT is really no better or worse than sorority/fraternity culture in America."||
Sorry, but this is incorrect.
You have to seek out frats/sorors and ask to become members.
In Korea, students studying the same major are asked to come, and if they don't comply, they can be ostracized, which is a big deal to Korean university students.
Thank god my department's MTs are relatively tame.
"Indeed alleged. But I mean they have video. Of sex with an underage girl. Whatever way you slice it, that's simply illegal.
What have you heard the other way, notably in regards to the allegations:
Several young Korean males belonging to a small Toronto Korea church gang raped (ie non consensual sex)a small number of Korean females and videos some of their acts, including one who was under 18.
"
I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no said 18 year old sex video found on this case...
If they did...the case would've been a no brainer..
It seems like the pastor of the church is the likely suspect who started all this...he has been recently sued by a married korean woman on the grounds of sexual harassment. This guy definitely sounds very fishy for a pastor...
Go watch "그것이 알고싶다" for this week. They did some extensive digging on this case.
Very sad. I heard from my coworker last Sunday about his wife and him stumbling upon a dead body (he lives at the Samick apartments downtown). Putting 2 + 2 together...
My wife tells me that the perpetrators denied this. Naturally, there is no way to prove this but I suppose crying for attention would be off the table since committing suicide on someone's actions is fully calling them out...
My wife added that apparently at the funeral, these @ssholes came to it and were eating the food there. That is what I find the most absolute and tragic thing about this (aside from some poor innocent, naive woman who could not have seen this coming) which is that these @ssholes don't even show any remorse. THAT is perhaps the one thing I hate the most about this culture: when someone screws up they often pretend like they did the opposite! ><
I hope they roast in hell for this. I also hope the government and University would wake up to these things and start making changes to prevent them...
The drinking is really bad and so is the sexism but I'm afraid neither will fully go away for decades to come. Look at the anti-smoking campaign and how far it's come. :/
We can always hope in the meantime though.
RIP poor soul...
I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no said 18 year old sex video found on this case...
If they did...the case would've been a no brainer
According to news reports:
http://www.canada.com/news/Pastor+church+centre+sexual+assault+allegations+arrested/2713605/story.html
Last week six men were arrested and charged for a series of gang sexual assaults on women and one young girl they allegedly met through the Korean community church.
Over the weekend two women were also arrested.
The men in custody were also charged with making child pornography involving the underage girl. Three other women are believed to have been violently assaulted over the past several months.
It could be photos, mind you. It doesn't explicitly say video. Either way, I have a hard time believing the cops would claim the above unless they had what they had.
Anyway, I asked what you have heard the other way and you didn't respond with any contrary reports. Other than your own authority, do you have anything to indicate the news report is inaccurate?
Here's a blog post last week from a guy who says one of his students died on an MT this spring:
http://waegook.blogspot.com/2010/04/mt-tragedy.html
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