She would wake up, dress in uniforms, and head out to her middle school classes. This was the daily life of one of the anonymous underaged victims in the Korean sexual scandal called “Nth Room”; in which women were forced and threatened into sharing pornographic content in Telegram’s group chats. As with many others, this minor was blackmailed into a sexual enslavement scheme by its leader, Cho Joo-bin.
During an interview for the Kim Hyun Jung News Show for CBS Radio, the victim disclosed that she received a sponsoring offer through a chatting app, where someone was falsely promising to pay her a large amount of money. Once the predator had access to the girl’s personal information, bank account number, and illicit content showing her face, the threats began and did not stop for long after that.
“Victim: He already had my face, my voice, my personal information. I was afraid that he would threaten me with that information if I said I would quit.” – Kim Hyun Jung‘s News Show for CBS Radio.
It wasn’t an isolated case
“The Nth Room”, “The Burning Sun” and Spycam’s Deepfaking porn are just a few examples of sex scandals in South Korea among many other cases in the country.
While sexual crimes are on the rise and violence against women becomes endemic, conservative politicians are disseminating a new wave of antifeminism through their misogynistic plan of policies.
According to OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, South Korea presents the highest wage disparity between men and women, reporting a wage gap of 30% between genders. However, conservative South Korean politicians demand the end of MOGEF, Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, and plan to ban inclusive policies for women in the private sector as well as in political offices.
The reason behind the outbreak of these sexist measures is this new concept of “Reverse Discrimination”. South Korean men believe that structural prejudice against women is in the past and that all policies regarding the combat of this matter are, in fact, discriminatory against men. They believe, for example, that mandatory military service only for men is detrimental and that it delays their entry into the job market, in comparison to women’s entrance.
Accordingly, right-wing politicians take advantage of men’s resentment of women and their “feminist privileges” to secure votes and manipulate the masses. By taking away women’s rights they grow in popularity and perpetuate a violent movement against minorities.
Even though it is scary, it’s not shocking to watch campaigns aiming against women’s rights rise, taking into consideration that very important men in South Korea are often involved in sex scandals. We are talking about male K-pop Idols, who are idolized by people from all over the world and are often caught committing sexual crimes.
Lee Seung-Hyun, also known as Seungri, a former member of the K-pop band BigBang, was one of the predators behind the Burning Sun Sex Scandal, which contemplated rape, sexual abuse, corruption and forced prostitution.
By the time he was condemned, in August of 2021, Seungri had eight million followers on Instagram and was nominated for the Popularity Award at Seoul Music Awards.
By extension, it is easy to connect the dots and recognize that those who are in power benefit from this surge of antifeminism, as many of them are directly involved in violence against women.
It is saddening to know that even though South Korea is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, none of this development can deny the fact that South Korean women are struggling to simply exist safely in their own country.
The article above was edited by Isadora Mangueira.
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