By Jung Hae-myoung



Current government measures against domestic violence fail to punish the offenders and cannot protect the victims, women's rights activists said Monday.



Dozens of members from the Korea Women's Hot Line (KWHL), as well as some domestic violence survivors, urged law enforcement authorities to sternly punish domestic violence offenders during a press conference in downtown Seoul



The conference was triggered by a case where a man murdered his ex-wife in an apartment parking lot in Gangseo-gu, western Seoul, Oct. 22. According to his daughters, the man had been abusing the ex-wife and them for 25 years.



The KWHL said police mismanagement of domestic violence cases and the courts' lenient rulings resulted in the killing.



"In a 2013 report by the National Police Agency, 57.9 percent of police officers said domestic violence should be handled within the family, and 35 percent said there was nothing they could do," said Ko Mi-kyoung, a representative of the KWHL. "Victims are dying at the hands of their male partners because of the poor awareness of the authorities."



The participants stressed the survivors' rights are not protected, from the initial steps throughout the court proceedings, demanding the National Assembly revise the relevant law to protect victims during investigation procedures.



"I was exposed to constant threats and violence from my ex-husband after I filed a divorce suit," one survivor said. "But the police and the prosecution only believed his claims that wounds on my body were self-inflicted due to a mental disorder."



Another survivor, who was abused by her father, said she also called the police, but the officers apparently made jokes with her father. "The officers told me off, saying it was not right for me to report my own father to the police," she said.



The KWHL pointed out the fundamental problem lies in the "objective" of the domestic violence law in Korea, which focuses on "keeping the household together" rather than punishing the perpetrator.



After the law was established in 1997, at least 824 women have been killed in domestic violence, according to the KWHL. From 2015 to June this year, 99 percent of the people who were detained for domestic violence were released with no time served in prison.



According to a separate report released by Rep. Kang Chang-il of the Democratic Party of Korea, police received 1.15 million reports on domestic violence from 2013 to 2017. But only 13 percent of offenders were charged.



Those who are arrested for domestic violence are usually given light penalties such as suspended jail terms which can be replaced by taking education courses or community service.



"The offenders should be subject to punishment, not counseling," said Kim Myeong-jin, head of arrangement committee for Korean Domestic Violence Counseling Center for Women's Rights. "The number of repeat crimes shows either the law is not effective or the government has no will to protect the survivors."



In the Gangseo-gu murder case, the man stabbed his ex-wife to death. One of the three daughters then posted an online petition on Cheong Wa Dae's website, calling for the death penalty for her father. She said the father abused the mother and the daughters for more than 20 years and kept threatening them even after the divorce.

