“The Law Stands with Victims” Series: #MeToo accusation from a former judo athlete (Part 1)
By Lee Eunui
Published: November 10,
2022
Translated by Jun Jihai
※Editor’s
Note: This series documents attorney Lee Eunui’s legal battles on sexual
violence and #MeToo cases, which have brought controversy in Korean society for
the last several years.
#MeToo accusations in the sports community: sexual abuse by
a coach
In January 2019, Shim
Sukhee, an Olympic medalist, drew the public’s attention to sexual harassment
in the sports community with her #MeToo accusation. As an attorney handling a series
of #MeToo cases one after another, a surge of inquiries made my life hectic.
One Sunday, I went to my office to prepare legal documents that I could not
complete during workdays, and then I got a call from a cub reporter whom I had
never met before.
I was told that there
was a victim who was sexually abused by her coach during her school days. She made an
accusation in March 2018 that was sent to the prosecutors’ office with the
recommendation not to prosecute, and the prosecutor suspended the indictment. The call carried the reporter’s enthusiasm for this case and endeavors to study
its legal background, but more than anything else, the reporter showed genuine
care about the victim’s tough circumstances. The reporter said, “Please give
her a chance. She’s struggling financially.”
That was how it went. I
agreed to meet the victim, Shin Yuyong, a former national judo team athlete,
the next evening. On January 15, 2019, Ms. Shin showed up for our first meeting
with a bucket hat pressed down on her head and thick makeup, so thick that I
hardly saw her eyes. It turned out that she was suffering from an acute panic
disorder at that moment.
The perpetrator reached
out to the victim after she became an adult, persistently reviving his
existence each time she was beginning to forget. In the spring of 2018, she
determined to end the pain of the past and the anxiety of the present by filing
a lawsuit against him. However, the investigative agency and the victim public
defender system failed to fully understand the complicated history that began
in her school days and her condition. Even though she was a grown-up, she was still
a student with no people around to give her a hand.
Desperately longing to
punish the perpetrator, she stepped forward on social media and revealed her
experience of sexual violence. She then faced the public’s indifference. That
situation took a new turn as her exposé on social media garnered attention
after Ms. Shim’s #MeToo accusation highlighted the issue of sexual violence in
the sports community. Interview requests flooded in from everywhere, and the
anxiety and desperation drove her to accept every one of them. She had to repeatedly
recount the memories she wanted to let go, until panic disorder symptoms
developed and she passed out. She confessed that she had visited an emergency
room right before our meeting to get IV treatment.
 |
| During the criminal trial, Ms. Shin gained strength from local women’s organizations who rallied to support her by picketing and attending the trial. She had been alone in high school, but now she was surrounded by people who supported her. ⓒShin Yuyong |
After listening to her and
seeing how the investigation had proceeded, I was upset.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the ability to take on another case. As I was torn
about what to do, Ms. Shin got a call from the Gunsan Branch of the Jeonju District Prosecutors' Office. I asked her to give me the
phone to do some fact checking with the prosecutor. The voice over the phone
sounded delighted: “Are you going to take her case?” To continue the
conversation, I said yes and threw a couple of questions. The prosecutor, thankfully,
had [merely] imposed a temporary stay in proceedings as they could not get in
touch with the victim. The prosecutor asked if Ms. Shin wanted to prepare
another statement, and she promised to cooperate with the proceedings as much
as necessary.
While I was explaining
what I had just heard from the prosecutor to Ms. Shin, her phone rang again
from the same caller. The prosecutor said they had reported to the higher-ups that
I had taken on the case and wanted to set the date for an investigatory meeting
immediately. I hung up the phone and told Ms. Shin that “I guess it was my fate
to take this case.” She responded, “I came here to get you as my attorney by
any means.”
The reality revealed by four prosecutor investigations
Taking her case, I
straightened up several things. I decided not to let the victim directly deal
with the media so that we could focus instead on the investigation to indict
the coach for sexual assault and avoid unnecessary misunderstanding or noise.
What the victim needed the most was rest for her body and soul. I wanted to
make a statement asking the press to refrain from contact that could weigh on
the victim as she was now with her legal representative, but I was not sure how.
So, even though it might not have been the best way, I uploaded a simple notice
on my Facebook account. Fortunately, as the #MeToo movement was at its height,
the message was spread widely.
In about a 40-day period
during the winter of 2019, the Gunsan Branch of the Jeonju District
Prosecutors' Office carried out a series of four supplementary investigations. The interviews
[of Ms. Shin] for these began
in the morning and ended in the middle of the night. Three out of four times, the
interview ended just in time for us to make the last train back to Seoul, but
the other time it lasted until after the last train had left the station.
Although it was a tiring and time-consuming process, no one—neither the
investigator, nor the one under investigation, nor the one sitting there with
them—ever complained.
At that time, it was statutory
rape to have sexual intercourse with a minor under 14 years old. Ms. Shin was
first sexually assaulted when she was 16 years old. The abuse lasted over a
year, and she could not report it to the police because she was a student under
the abuser’s guidance. Matters that do not require any explanation outside of
the court do require one inside the court, where the punishment of the accused
is on the table, especially when he could deny his criminal acts, distort
reality, or state what happened in a way that favors him.
As her family was
financially struggling, the victim had chosen a middle school that had offered
her a judo scholarship, and then she went to a high school operated by the same
foundation. The perpetrator, newly hired as her coach during her first year of
high school, seriously abused the students in the name of discipline. Just
because she gained a few hundred grams of weight after a weekend visit to her
home, he whipped her with a yellow hose nicknamed “danmuji [yellow
pickled radish]” and even strangled her. The perpetrator also punched Ms. Shin until
she lost consciousness in front of all of the judo competitors in school, but
no one dared to step in. Because the world of sports is already one dominated
by a clear hierarchy, she was slowly tamed by the coach’s violence and came to
have a narrow-minded obsession with judo.
Then one day the sexual
abuse started. Not long after the first incident, an indecent act by
compulsion, he sexually assaulted her, and she resisted but to no avail. The
perpetrator said, “The judo team will have no future if you tell anyone about
this,” and, “Neither of us would be able to live in this country any longer,”
right after an act of sexual violence. Ms. Shin was young and clueless about
the future. Her mother worked at a car wash to raise four children alone, which
made it difficult for her to visit the school often. The victim was worried about
deeply upsetting her mother, and anyway, her mother did not seem to have any
resources to resolve such an immense situation. So she didn’t tell her mother
until after her experience was reported in the media.
 |
| Iksan Station, which Ms. Shin and I traveled through many times to get to the Gunsan Branch of the Jeonju District Prosecutors' Office for cooperation with the prosecutor's investigation of the plaintiff. ⓒShin Yuyong |
A centuries-old barrier made of prejudice often blocks people from fully understanding the circumstances of a victim who is poor, young, and exposed to repeated sexual violence. Victims have to explain and provide good grounds about how they were exposed to sexual violence, how their stories were covered up by the perpetrator, and how vulnerable they are. Furthermore, police, prosecutors, and judges have different backgrounds from the victims. No matter the type of questions they ask, they want the same logical conclusion during investigations and trials. That conclusion is the victim’s statement. That also requires the process of collecting every possible piece of evidence that can enhance the reliability of such a statement.
We submitted Ms. Shin’s
cell phone as evidence, as well as her high school diary that had all sorts of
personal thoughts in it. A student who participated in the same field training
in high school made
statements by sending messages online.
The prosecutor asking
questions, the attorney helping out—they were all out of breath, but Ms. Shin
was collected. Except this one day when she shed tears for the first time. It
was the time when she was asked, “Why didn’t you tell your mother?” Seemingly
out of nowhere, she suddenly said my hands were soft and tender, unlike her
mother’s, who is the same age as me. Then she went on to talk about her mother
working hard at a car wash until her hands became rough. It was neither a
cohesive nor logical story, but she put all of us into her position, a first-year
high school student who overcame daily harsh training thinking about her
mother. The prosecutor doing the interrogation and I could not hold back tears.
A 19-year-old, left alone without her dream
On the first day we were
to visit the Gunsan Branch of the Jeonju District Prosecutors' Office, Ms. Shin
missed the train to Iksan. I had to wait for her for over an hour, so I went
out of Iksan Station. I found the surrounding area bare and empty. Ms. Shin’s experience
of sexual violence lasted about a year, until she got a judo injury that put
her in the hospital while a few seasons changed. After recovering from the
injury, she gave up on judo. The injury was not the only reason for it. The
sexual violence cast a large shadow over her mind. As she quit judo and turned
19, she found herself alone here in Iksan. Her friends chose a works team or entered
college, but she had nowhere to go.
Her mother recommended
she sign up for a hagwon to become a licensed practical nurse, saying a white uniform
would be as good as a white judogi. Nineteen-year-old Shin Yuyong needed more
than a year to find a different dream. She then came to Seoul and prepared to
get into college while working a part-time job. At last, she became a freshman,
at a slightly older age than the ordinary. This story had been colorless to me
when I heard it in Seoul, but it gained its colors as I waited for Ms. Shin while
standing in front of Iksan Station in its winter solitude.
When the fourth and final
prosecutor’s interview came to an end, the last train was about to leave the
station. We decided to give up on returning
to Seoul and instead, we stayed at a motel near the station. Enjoying instant
ramen and beer, we watched dated Korean movies and giggled about our favorite
actors. At last, the investigation was finally over!
 |
| Shin Yuyong graduated from an arts college around the time the lawsuit she had started by filing a criminal complaint against her ex-coach ended in conviction. ⓒShin Yuyong |
The perpetrator countersued the victim for false accusation
[In Korea, a person who
reports false information to a public office or a public official for the
purpose of having a criminal or disciplinary punishment imposed upon another may
be punished under the law.]
On March 4, 2019, the
Gunsan District Prosecutors' Office requested an arrest warrant for the
perpetrator, and fortunately—no, rightly—Gunsan District Court determined to
arrest him. The perpetrator claimed that he had been in a romantic relationship
with his then-16-year-old student and sued the victim for falsely accusing him.
Moreover, his wife, who used to be Ms. Shin’s teacher, filed a lawsuit against
Ms. Shin for being his mistress.
[In Korea, if one person in an affair knows the other is married and commits adultery anyway, the spouse can file a lawsuit for damages against the affair partner.]
Each time we went to the
criminal trial at the Gunsan District Court, a group of local civil activists,
including women’s groups, showed their support for us. They gathered for
picketing outside the court in the early morning. Ms. Shin and I were deeply
moved by their actions. However, the court dampened our spirits. On the first
day of the trial, the judges decided to hold a closed trial. Many supporters
who attended the trial had to leave the court without knowing the reason. We
desperately raised objections, but nothing changed. Some people even assumed
that it was the victim’s idea, so we stated outright to the media that the
victim had wanted a public trial.
The perpetrator—the “accused”
at that time—still insisted that he and Ms. Shin were in a romantic
relationship, so it was inevitable that she would have to testify as a witness.
During the prosecutor’s investigations I learned that the victim was of strong
character, but the fact that she was barely over twenty and that she had to go
through the process of testifying weighed heavily on my mind. A few days before
the trial, I met Ms. Shin to prepare her and give her a pep talk. However, she
ended up encouraging me instead.
She said, “I felt
helpless. I believed that I couldn’t live a happy, normal life, and I was
ruined by the sexual violence that happened to me, at that young age, so routinely
and as if it were natural. But I spoke out about my victimization and received
unexpected support from people. I finally realized that I am still valuable. I
feel hopeful that I can live a normal life.”
Then she headed for her part-time
job, saying she had to earn money by the sweat of her brow to
pay for the paper used for her written statement for the
lawsuit filed against her by the perpetrator’s wife. (to be continued in Part
2)
Lee
Eunui graduated from law school in 2014 and became a lawyer. She opened “Lee
Eunui Law Firm” right in front of the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office and has
been dealing with various cases of sexual violence and sex discrimination. She
is not dreaming of extraordinary justice or immersive progress in our society,
but a world with common sense, a world where reasonable thoughts and discourse
are valid. She has been on the frontline of a legal battleground for nine years
as a lawyer as well as a writer who published books such as Leaving Samsung, It’s
Okay to Be Sensitive,
Ready to Feel
Uncomfortable, and Gentle Violence.
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