'Stalked for rape': Fear grows among women living alone

Screen capture from the widely circulated CCTV footage of a man who tried to slip into a woman's apartment as she entered her home. / Captured from YouTube

Women speak up on facing sexual assault on their doorsteps

By Lee Suh-yoon

A viral video clip of a man trying to slip into a woman's home in Sillim-dong, Seoul, has sparked a flood of harrowing testimonies from Korean women, who say stalking and sexual assault by strangers is a real and widespread problem, especially for women who live alone.

Some of them reached out to The Korea Times to share their accounts.

"I have had several instances where drunk men have followed me to the front door. I literally had to run inside the building while keeping a male friend on the phone," Kang Joo-eun, 25, a university student living in Sillim-dong, said, Friday.

The video clip, tagged #failedrape, was first posted on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon, after the disturbing event was caught on a surveillance camera outside the woman's home early in the morning of the same day. In the footage, now shared over 58,000 times on Twitter, a young woman steps out of the elevator and taps on a keypad lock to enter her apartment. As the door is about to shut behind her, a man in his 30s steps out of the still-open elevator and extends his arms toward the door ― a second too late. Agitated, he paces around the locked door, pushing at the door handle and keypad.

In the extended version of the video footage, later released by local broadcasters and YouTubers, the man loiters in front of the door for 10 minutes. He even shines his cellphone flashlight at the keypad in the dark, trying to make out the woman's fingerprints. Police said the man also threatened the woman, saying he would force the door open if she did not let him in.

The man, surnamed Cho, turned himself in to the police after the video went viral and he discovered the police were trying to identify him. Cho, who had no prior ties with the targeted woman, followed her from the streets. He pressed a higher number in the elevator to trick her into thinking he was going to a different floor, according to the woman's testimony.

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Cho has denied all charges, saying he was drunk and does not remember anything. The court issued an arrest warrant Friday evening, saying there was a high risk of him repeating his actions. Cho was also fined in 2012 for sexually harassing a woman on the street.

Some 2.8 million women live alone, around half of all single-person households in Korea, according to most recent government statistics. The number is increasing each year as more young people choose to stay single or put off marriage.

Being a woman living alone makes one a more likely target of crime. A 2017 report by the Korean Institute of Criminology shows women were 2.3 times more likely to face crimes compared to men in single household group aged up to 33. According to government data revealed by Rep. Kang Chang-il of the Democratic Party of Korea last October, 1,310 break-in sexual violence cases were reported from 2014 to 2017 ― an average of once a day. Perpetrators were men in 99.8 percent of the cases and 28 percent involved rape.

Women who live alone in small flats in residential villas or buildings located in darker alleys say sexual harassment and stalking is common. Some of these men are perfectly sober and as young as the women, according to collected testimonies.

Joo, 23, a university student who asked to be identified by her surname, said she recently moved to a bigger residential building located by the main street after multiple encounters with strangers who followed or harassed her on her way home.

"They try to make small talk. When you decline and walk on, they run after you and hug you from behind. Or they just silently follow you down the alley. I had to take refuge inside a nearby supermarket before I could run home," she said. "At this new building, there's a guard who keeps out strangers on the first floor. The monthly rent is 200,000 won ($170) more but I guess you could call it the cost of protecting my life."

People who can't afford to move to safer housing resort to measures like leaving men's shoes in front of their door or playing male voice recordings ― hoping it will chase away such unwanted trespassers.

Experts say there are still no laws in place to adequately punish stalkers like Cho who show "a clear intent" to commit sexual violence. In the small number of cases that are reported, most get away with a small fine or short detention on charges of trespassing.

"Unlike arson or murder, there are no laws for punishing rape or sexual violence in its planning or preparation stages," said Kim Yong-hua, a professor of law and women's studies at Sookmyung Women's University Law School. "It's obvious he (Cho) did not push at the door to just trespass, but I'm not sure how prosecutors will manage to charge Cho of failed rape before relevant legislation fills in this gap in the legal system."