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President Kim appoints Ehwa Women's University President Chang
Sang as new Prime Minister
The Republic of Korea witnessed the birth of the first woman
Prime Minister since the establishment of the Constitutional
government.
Through the Cabinet reshuffle that took place on July 11,
President Kim Dae Jung appointed Ehwa Women's University President
Chang Sang as the Acting Prime Minister.
Blue House Chief Secretary Park Ji Won announced on July 11,
"The President, recognizing that the fate of the nation
in the 21st century depends on women, has appointed a woman
Prime Minister for the first time in the history of the Constitutional
government." In explaining the reasons for the appointment,
Park added, "As a scholar and education expert and at
the same time a university president, Acting Prime Minister
Chang Sang is endowed with the managerial mindset that makes
her well-qualified to efficiently lead the Cabinet."
The new Acting Prime Minister will be formally appointed as
the Prime Minister upon the approval of the National Assembly.
Acting PM Chang Sang was born in Yongcheon, North Pyeongan
Province (North Korea). After graduating from Sook Myong High
School and gaining a degree in Mathematics at Ewha Women's
University, she switched direction and studied for a PhD in
Theology at Princeton University. She returned to Korea and
became a professor at her alma mater in 1977. In September
1996, she became the first married president of Ewha Women's
University, and went on to prove her managerial capabilities
while serving as president for two consecutive terms. For
one and a half years from April 1999, Acting PM Chang was
on the New Millennium Preparation Committee, and she was also
a leader in the women's movement, serving as the Vice-president
of YWCA.
The two women Ministers, Minister of Gender Equality Han Myong
Sook and Minister of Environment Kim Myong Ja, were retained,
while 8 Cabinet members were replaced, with former Justice
Minister (and lawyer) Kim Jung Gil reappointed as Justice
Minister, Chair of the Defense Planning Committee of the National
Defense Ministry Lee Jun assuming the Defense Minister post,
and Director of the Korea Research Foundation Kim Sung Jae
becoming the new Minister of Culture and Tourism.
<Reported by Shin Min-kyung minks02@womennews.co.kr
>
- says policewomen at the International Women Police Conference
"That prostitution is definitely not "a crime without
a victim" can be easily understood once you talk to women
in prostitution, their families, and the police." (Catherine
Suay, Information Officer, Organized Crime Department, Las
Vegas Police Department, USA)
 ¢º
On July 8, the National Police Agency invited women police
representatives from 12 countries to the first World Women
Police Conference, where participants talked about the 'Status
and Countermeasures concerning Prostitution' <photograph
by Min Won-ki>
On July 8, the National Police Agency (NPA) hosted a seminar
on the "Status and Countermeasures concerning Prostitution
in Each Country," participated by women police representatives,
women groups and diplomats from 12 countries including the
UK, Japan, Canada, Thailand and Russia. The policewomen delegates
agreed that "women involved in prostitution are victims,
and the police must strive to protect their human rights."
Seminar participants presented the current status, legal institutions
and police measures regarding prostitution in each country.
The forms of prostitution and the policies implemented differed
greatly from country to country, but all the participants
agreed to the need to 'de-criminalize' sex workers, punish
brothel keepers severely, and eradicate police corruption.
Kim Kang Ja, Director of the Women and Youth Department of
the NPA and the Korean presenter at the seminar, said, "There
are some 1.5 million sex workers in Korea (civic groups estimate
3 million), and prostitution in Korea is characterized by
enslavement and cruel human rights violations by the brothel
keepers who demand and take prepayment."
Kim recommended a step-by-step approach for the effective
eradication of prostitution, in which the police first cracks
down on prostitution involving minors or forcing slavery in
the red light districts, then moves on to regulate employment
of minors or human trafficking in entertainment spots, and
then deals with youth prostitution on a one-on-one basis.
Kim suggested, "In the mid to long term, funds must be
secured to put in place institutional mechanisms to guarantee
alternative livelihoods for sex workers, and to launch a nationwide
campaign to reform the sex culture."
<Reported by Cho Lee Yeu-wool
cognate@womennews.co.kr >
- selected by the 21st Century Women Media Network
The 'Equal Media Award of the Year,' founded by the 21st
Century Women Media Network in 2000 to realize gender equality
in the media and to protect the rights of women media workers,
awarded the first prize to The Women's News.
The Network announced that it had chosen The Women's News
in recognition of the paper's contribution to breaking down
gender discriminatory prejudices in mass media and spreading
the culture of gender equality.
Since its founding in 1988, The Women's News, the leading
paper in feminist journalism, has worked to discover women's
problems ignored by the established press and to solve them
based on feminist theories, thereby contributing to raising
women's awareness and their status in society. In particular,
the paper has provided in-depth reports on legal and institutional
controversies involving women and on the exclusion of women
from politics. This, the Network explained, earned the paper
high marks for its contribution to enhancing women's participation
in politics and their political empowerment.
The runner-up prize went to the KBS drama <Love and War
Clinic for Spouses> for surfacing hidden problems between
spouses while providing an opportunity for viewers to participate
by sharing their thoughts and searching for solutions together.
Sharing the runner-up prize was EBS producer Kang Young Sook's
<21st Century Lectures for Women> for planning and making
programs that approached women's issues through a variety
of themes.
The consolation prize went to representative Chon Sang Geum
of the Media World Open-minded People, and the special prize
to MBC producers Roh Hyuk Jin and Kim Sae Byol, who produced
an edition of the documentary program <Producer's Pocketbook>
entitled "Sexual Violence against Children - An Ongoing
Nightmare."
The 21st Century Women Media Network held its 4th anniversary
celebrations and the 3rd Equal Media Awards Ceremony at 6
pm on July 12, at the Korea Press Foundation.
<Reported by Kim Kyong-hae
musou21@womennews.co.kr >
- International community must persuade China to protect these
women and their livelihoods
There is rising domestic and international concern regarding
North Korean women defectors in China who live in the shadows
of human rights. The Chinese government, however, is cracking
down severely on groups that support North Korean refugees,
blocking ways to actually help these people.
Amnesty International revealed in its annual report published
on May 28 that three out of four North Korean defectors in
China are women, many of whom are targeted by organized crime
rings, repeatedly raped and forced into prostitution. Other
groups supporting North Korean defectors such as the Citizens'
Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, Good Friends, Campaign
to Protect North Korean Refugees and the YWCA have also testified
to the dangerous situation faced by North Korean women in
China through their own investigations. According to these
groups, the situation concerning North Korean refugees in
China have changed significantly, mainly in terms of the rapidly
increasing number of women crossing the boarder into China
and the rapidly expanding crimes of human trafficking of these
women.
Victims of human trafficking fall into three categories -
being targeted by traffickers even before leaving North Korea
and handed over to Chinese traffickers upon crossing the river,
crossing the river alone and eventually falling into the hands
of traffickers watching the riverbank, and reaching inland
cities only to be caught by traffickers at train stations
or markets. There are countless human trafficking rings along
the Sino-Korean boarder, with a rising number of them starting
their nefarious acts in North Korea.
The victims are reported to be sold to old bachelors or widowers
in the countryside for 3000 yuan (a little over US$400) each
and forced into marriage. According to a North Korean women
support group, in most cases a few men from the same village
pool their money to purchase one woman. If five men buy the
joint ownership of one woman, the woman is forced to have
sex with all five of them by night and take care of all five
households and farms by day. There are cases where brothers
buy and share one woman. A woman caught and sold to a village
becomes an important village property. And so all the villagers
keep watch over the woman, making escape impossible. On top
of this, marriage between North Korean refugees and Chinese
nationals is not recognized by law, meaning that these women
have nowhere to turn to for protection.
During the second International Conference on North Korean
Human Rights and Refugees held in Japan in February, one North
Korean woman defector testified to the slave-like living conditions
of her compatriots thus, "If you're sold to a place like
Shantung, you'll never make it out of there. They tie up your
hands and feet, follow you even to the bathroom, and never
let you out of the house. If you happen to escape and then
get caught by the family you were forced to marry into, you'll
be horribly beaten, and sometimes even killed. People like
us can be killed and never discovered as long as the villagers
keep their mouths shut."
There are about four to five hundred groups in China working
to support North Korean refugees, but only a small minority
of the North Korean women gets to receive help from such groups.
This is because these groups must act in secret, away from
the eyes of the Chinese government. Such activities cost a
lot of money as well. Upon receiving information about North
Korean victims of human trafficking, the support groups usually
buy back the women, and the repurchasing price has steadily
increased to about five times the original. Another thing
these women direly need is a safe hiding place, but it is
not easy to find such places in China. They barely manage
to house one or two women at a time in a remote apartment
or farmhouse.
Providing even such insufficient support has become difficult
this year. Since the incidents where North Korean asylum seekers
planned and staged the storming of foreign diplomatic establishments
in rapid succession, Chinese authorities have expelled all
the support groups and arrested and detained missionaries
who had been helping North Korean refugees.
How can the problem of human trafficking and human rights
violations faced by North Korean women defectors be solved?
Some of the support groups suggest that a North Korean refugee
camp be built in Mongolia. The refugees can avoid China's
hard-line stance against them and turn instead to Mongolia,
where they have relatively more freedom and can receive job
training at the refugee camp. But workers in the support groups
helping North Korean women refugees point out that this is
an unrealistic solution, since it takes the women who have
no means of transportation two months to reach Mongolia on
foot, by which time they would be caught either by Chinese
authorities or traffickers.
These women will never be safe as long as the Chinese government
refuses to recognize that the North Korean escapees are 'refugees
according to international laws.' Support groups stress that
the most important thing for now is to use international public
opinion to persuade Beijing to change. This means the international
community raising one voice appealing China, currently quite
sensitive to international criticism with the 2008 Beijing
Olympics ahead, to recognize the North Koreans' refugee status,
stop arrests and forced repatriation, and eradicate trafficking
of North Korean women.
To this end, groups helping North Korean women defectors are
planning to conclude the groundwork of their situation survey
by the end of this year. They will send survey teams to the
eight borderland areas to gather accurate data on the number
of women defectors, their age and route into China, their
suffering of human trafficking and so on. At the same time,
the groups will continue pushing the issue at the UN and other
international conferences in order to set it as an international
agenda. As emphasized by UNHCR Ruud Lubbers on the occasion
of the World Refugee Day on June 20, offering "adequate
protection and assistance for refugees ¡¦ halts rising crime,
prevents new violence and can be crucial for global security."
Reported by Lee Jeong-ju jena21@womennews.co.kr
<Reported by Lee jung-joo
jena21@womennews.co.kr >
- to be used in teaching that Koreans were also aggressors
Five civic groups including the Cyber NGO Archive of Sungkonghoe
University jointly produced and launched on July 2 a 35-minute
educational CD-ROM entitled <Writing the Story of Peace
on Memories of War,> containing a new perspective of the
Vietnam War and the fact-finding missions concerning the civilian
killings perpetrated by Korean mercenaries.
The Committee on the Truth of the Vietnam War belonging to
the Korean House of International Association, the Medical
Association for Peace in Vietnam, You and We and a group of
young writers who want to understand Vietnam all participated
in the production of the CD-ROM. One of them was Professor
Han Hong Gu of Sungkonghoe University.
"The CD was produced in an effort to heal past wounds
and create a new history of peace by uncovering the truth
of civilian killings during the Vietnam War and apologizing
for our crimes. By revealing the painful past, we hope to
console the Koreans who took part in the Vietnam War in their
youth and became both the aggressor and the victim in the
process. In this way, we aim to open a new century of peace
between our two countries."
Professor Han introduces the CD as "an educational resource
that will help not only students but ordinary people realize
how meaninglessly violent war really is."
The CD, divided into 4 parts, presents the real story of the
Vietnam War and evidence of civilian killings perpetrated
by Korean soldiers in the first half. The investigation report
by the inspection department of the US Army in Vietnam, released
from classified files in 2000, officially confirms the involvement
of Korean soldiers in the massacres in three villages that
took a total of 95 civilian lives over two years beginning
in 1968. The second half of the CD presents the current status
of war veterans suffering from the aftermath of defoliants.
Theater actress Oh Ji Hye, a fan of Professor Han's literature,
gladly agreed to do the narration for the CD.
"It would be inconsistent to angrily condemn the misdeeds
of foreign forces such as the Japanese army's enlistment of
comfort women and the American soldiers' civilian killings
at Nogunri while keeping silent about the massacres we ourselves
committed. The time has come for us to teach our students
the appalling truth about the Vietnam War in which we were
aggressors." In this day and age when we are so obsessed
with becoming an advanced country, the professor's words seem
to point to the path we should take in becoming a genuinely
advanced nation.
For inquiries about the CD-ROM: Sungkonghoe University NGO
Archive Tel) +82-2-2610-4741
<Reported by Lee Park jae-yeon
revival@womennews.co.kr >
(The Women's News http://www.womennews.co.kr)
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