Raped, assaulted, nowhere to find help: Foreign women speak out about their experiences of sexual violence in Korea

Among the four sexual assault victims interviewed by The Korea Times and and its sister paper Hankook Ilbo, all except Flower wished to remain anonymous. The other names used in this article are pseudonyms. ― ED.

By Lee Min-young

"When I was raped, it actually took me about a month to muster up the strength to go and make my case."

After taking a deep breath, Jennifer, a sexual assault victim, broke the silence and started talking about what happened to her that night.

Acquaintance, friend and partner

"He was actually a friend. We started out as friends and we used to hang out occasionally along with mutual friends," Jennifer told The Korea Times. But, she continued, that all changed when she went out for a drink with him and he showed his true colors.

The two had an argument outside a bar and suddenly he started acting aggressively, grabbing her by the shoulder and assaulting her. "I went straight into a full-on panic attack and I just went into a manic state at that moment and just blacked out."

The next thing she knew she was being dragged to a motel. She said her body was hurting all over and she even had a bloody lip but she couldn't remember what he had done to her or how she got there.

There, Jennifer was raped by him four times.

Jennifer speaks during a recent interview with The Korea Times. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

"I felt trapped. He wouldn't let me go. By the fourth time, I felt so exhausted and helpless that I told him to get it done and over with if this is what he really wanted."

Flower from South Africa, another victim of sexual assault, recalled a similar experience.

"We were actually dating for about a month. But I had no intention of getting physical with him yet. I was uncomfortable about it." One day the two went out on a date and since it was getting too late to take the subway, he asked her if she wanted to stay at a nearby hotel for the night and get some rest. She agreed, unaware of his real intention.

"I told him, 'I'm sorry, I don't want to do anything, I just want to sleep,' but he ignored my request. Eventually he pinned me down to the bed with force, and started to do his thing." She said that she begged him over and over again that night to stop but he wouldn't listen. "I said, 'Please, if you're going to do this, please use protection, please...' but he ignored my request to use protection."

One month later, she learned she was pregnant.

Flower, another victim of sexual assault, said she remembers waking up in a hotel room without any clothes on, completely terrified, as she didn't have any recollection of what had happened to her that night. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

During the interview, Flower became very emotional and tearful as she spoke about becoming pregnant as a result of the rape. "This is the first time I would ever talk about this publicly. That situation changed my life completely."

Ever since, she has been dealing with anxiety and PTSD. She never came forward about the attack and swept the traumatic experience under the rug.

Fear of reporting

She told The Korea Times that there are many foreign women who have been victims of sexual violence.

"I have tons of friends that constantly tell me this ajeoshi (middle-aged man) grabbed her bum on the subway and this one tried to take pictures of her. Foreign women often don't speak up about these problems because they are scared of losing their jobs and their reputation in this country."

Jeong Jae-hyung, an inspector with the juvenile crime and gender-based violence division at the National Police Agency (NPA), says many of the victims are reluctant to come forward because of their immigration or work status among other issues. The language barrier and a lack of information can also prevent them from calling for help. "These barriers also make the women an easier target and as such are exploited by the perpetrators," he said.

Jeong Jae-hyung, an inspector with the juvenile crime and gender-based violence division at the National Police Agency, speaks to The Korea Times about sexual violence cases against foreign women. Korea Times photo by Kim-Kang-min

According to the latest data provided by the Korean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS), in 2020 a total of 2,036,075 foreigners resided in Korea ― 909,103 of them women. But the number of calls to the Danuri Helpline in relation to sexual assault last year was 55, just 0.5 percent of the total calls received ― an indication that such crimes are vastly underreported. Only 747 cases out of 39,296 reported sexual assault cases in 2020 involved foreign victims.

Qualified, experienced translators are needed

Cases involving foreigners are usually processed by multicultural support centers, and the victims are accompanied through the investigation by an interpreter and someone with whom they have a trusted relationship. While using translation services is the one major procedural difference between foreign and Korean victims, the language barrier is still a great hurdle for them in report their cases to the police.

After Jennifer reported the crime and gave her statement to the prosecution during an investigation to bring her case to court, she struggled to describe what had happened to her despite the help of an interpreter.

The language barrier is still a great hurdle for foreign victims in reporting cases of sexual violence to police. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

"I had to repeat myself several times and she had to fix herself (for clarification). Apparently, there was something wrong with the translation of my statement that they couldn't understand exactly how I defended myself. So the prosecutor had asked me to reenact that."

So she was put into the situation of reenacting how she was raped four separate times. This occurred in front of all present, including the alleged rapist.

Gender sensitivity

Cases involving sexual assault had all been handled by criminal affairs departments in the past. But after many women raised the issue of a lack of gender sensitivity, the NPA created separate investigation departments for women and adolescents.

Patricia said she was shocked by how some police officers handled sexual violence cases without any sensitivity. She said she had gone to the police to report a case in which a stranger had sexually harassed her at her workplace. "They were yelling my personal information to one another and I was explaining my story quietly to one officer and the other officer kind of just shouts like, 'Oh, did he hit you?', 'Did he touch you?' You know, without any tact, without any grace."

Patricia, a victim of sexual harassment, talks about her experience with the police's handling of her case. Captured from Zoom

"We call it secondary victimization. We are trying to make sure that law enforcement personnel are responding in a sensitive way when it comes to dealing with sexual assault victims," Jeong said. He said police officers are being educated to collect statements from victims using AI-based speech recognition technology to help victims feel more comfortable talking to them.

The tool automatically converts their testimony into text so that officers won't have to type down statements, which makes victims feel as if they are being interrogated.

Linda also said she had an unpleasant experience with police officers. It was late at night when a man started following her as she jogged along the street. Police officers saw and came up to her asking if she was okay which soon led to inappropriate questions. "They started asking me unnecessary questions … and I could see them eyeing me up and down because I wasn't wearing a lot of clothes because it was very hot and I was exercising."

Linda talks about her unpleasant experience with Korean police officers. Captured from Zoom

The officers asked her what kind of work she was doing and her place of residence. "They were asking me in a way that felt like they were guessing if I was up for service. I had heard there were a number of Russian prostitutes living in the neighborhood," she said as she recalled the experience.

"They said they would follow me home to make sure I get home safe. I told them I didn't want them to know where I lived and I was feeling even more unsafe because of them but they insisted and eventually did follow me home," she said.

Lack of support

"After I went through all those experiences, I felt so alone."

Flower who had been through a number of traumatic situations in which she was sexually assaulted by Korean men regretted that she did not receive professional mental help for her PTSD.

Korea has improved its support system for Korean sexual assault victims over the past several years due to greater calls for victim protection and harsher punishment for perpetrators following a number of sex crime cases that made headlines nationwide.

But foreign women are still off of the radar, leaving many helpless and lost.

"There are organizations out there but they don't focus particularly on foreign woman. They didn't have any English-speaking staff, or they say they only help Korean women," Jennifer said. Experts say society needs to make more efforts to protect the rights of every victim no matter where they come from ― and change may be coming.

"As of now, we have detectives in charge who supervise every aspect of the investigation. But in the future, victims will have to be given further protection through specialized law enforcement personnel who speak their language and can better communicate with the victims," Jeong said.

There are a handful of organizations for Korean sexual assault victims but foreign women are still off their radar, leaving many helpless and lost. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

As of now, migrant women can report an incident through the Danuri Call Center, which is staffed by professional consultants from immigrant backgrounds.

The Danuri call center has services available in 13 languages, and it is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It also provides a range of information for migrant women and those from multi-ethnic households, including ways to request protection and assistance in the event of a crime.

"We're also working to better protect the rights of foreigners by working with migrant communities, law enforcement and neighborhood watch groups, while also raising awareness on safety guidelines and the resources that are available in case they need assistance," Jeong said.

Universal human rights

When Jennifer was provided with a lawyer by the government, she said she saw him only once during the investigation and did not hear from him until the ruling ― when she was informed that the case had been thrown out due to a lack of evidence.

"The biggest problem with sexual violence investigations is that the victims are often left out of the loop once they have filed their charges. Criminal court cases are handled by the national judiciary, so it falls on the state to decide the fate of the assailant or defendant in question," said Choi Seung-ho, an attorney at Ondam Law based in Seoul.

"The victim's accusations merely serve as evidence in the court, but they themselves are not part of the legal proceedings. This leads to several problems for the victims. There are often left completely in the dark about the court schedule and any updates on the investigation of their assailants."

Choi Seung-ho, an attorney at Ondam Law based in Seoul, speaks during a recent interview with The Korea Times. Korea Times photo by Kim Kang-min

Even when the victims make their case before a court, going through the legal process does not get any easier when potentially faced with the language barrier and the difficulty in expressing minor details of what happened to them. Korean victims can at least seek help to get the legal process going, such as consulting with lawyers or supporting their cases by writing a letter to the court, but it's more difficult for foreign women who need to rely solely on what an interpreter says.

"Even for Koreans, it's difficult to know exactly where we need to go and which court has jurisdiction over our case. It goes without saying that this is a far more challenging task if you're a migrant," Choi said, pointing out that it should be a high priority to introduce new policy tools to provide better legal assistance for foreign women in such cases.

"The rights of women who have been victimized by sexual assault is a basic, fundamental human rights issue. Korea's standing as a guarantor of basic human rights and social justice will be determined in no insignificant measure by how well it aids and protects victims."