On December 29 of last year, a 27-year-old woman, Ji-in Gu, was killed while she was being held captive at a secluded recreational lodge in Hwasun, Jeonnam, South Korea.

Ms. Ji In Gu was kidnapped, confined at the facility, and found dead after she was allegedly suffocated by her parents, presumably while trying to escape. Ms. Gu had experienced coercive conversion once before in 2016 when she was abducted and held captive for 44 days at a secluded lodge. After her escape, she had begun to lobby for the enforcement of freedom of religion and against the practice of forced conversion. Ms. Gu petitioned the government to investigate the criminal circumstances surrounding coercive conversion, but her appeal was ignored.

The following month, an estimated 120,000 protesters throughout South Korea demonstrated against coercive religious conversion programs. The recent protests in memoriam of Ji In Gu highlighted that she is the second woman to be killed due to coercive conversion; in 2007, Ms. Kim was beaten to death with a hammer by her ex-husband for refusing to participate in the program.

The Human Rights Association of Victims of Coercive Conversion Programs (HAVCCP or alternatively, Gangpiyeon), a Korean-based NGO, which organized the recent protests on behalf of Ji In Gu, gathered over 100,000 signatures in an online petition to the government for the punishment of those involved with coercive conversion programs. The HAVCCP’s main goal is to convince the government to create legislation that would offer protection from forced religious conversion; however, the petition was removed from the government website and no official statement has been made in response to the issue.

A spokesperson for the organization went on to say that the crimes are usually carried out by family members, while the pastors who encourage and incite violence against the victims escape legal punishment. They explained that these illegal activities and the resulting violence and deaths are disregarded by the police as the incidents are considered domestic or religious disputes, and as such, they do not intervene on behalf of victims.

Pastors involved in conversion programs typically attempt to convince a family that their loved one is engaged in dangerous behavior. Testimonies from women who have been abducted claim that men involved with the programs stalk them, record their activity, and blend precise details of their lives with false allegations to convince family members that they are participating in cults or committing acts which justify their abduction. The programs are paid for by the family and pastors make an effort to manipulate family members into committing illegal activities on their behalf.

President of the HAVCCP Sang Ik Park says: “Violent behaviour, including kidnapping, confinement and assault, cannot be justified. There is an urgent need for the punishment of pastors who lead coercive conversion programs in order to avoid the deaths of more citizens and other negative consequences. The victims of coercive conversion exceed 1,000. Legal protection and careful attention from citizens is a priority in order to avoid there being further victims.”

This video shows the abduction of Ms. Lim by a group of men working for a coercive conversion program. A passerby in a red shirt comes to her aid but is violently resisted by members of the religious conversion campaign.

Ms. Lim was a university student when she was abducted in July of 2012. Because she feared her parents might arrange for her to be taken by a coercive conversion program, she withdrew from her university classes to go into hiding. The program had previously attempted to detain her in March and May. As a result, she had been out of university classes for four months when she was dragged by her hair into a black car by a group of men.

According to Lim:

“On the day I was kidnapped, I met my mother at my university. As she exited the taxi, she hugged me tightly. Suddenly, she pulled me towards the street, where a black car was waiting. Strange men began to rush towards me and to grab me by my hair. I could not understand what was going on, and I was pulled violently into the car. One of the men started hitting me and shoving me. I was screaming for help, and a few people came over and tried to stop them, but they fought with the passer-bys who were trying to help me. So I was abducted in a running car, with its door open and my legs hanging out of the door.”

A woman protesting coercive conversion programs wipes a tear during a demonstration.

According to HAVVCP, there were approximately 1,200 victims of coercive conversion from 2007-2017, with an average of one hundred victims per year. However, the data is not precise as it only counts the members of HAVCCP, and the organization presumes the actual number of victims is much higher.

Choi Ji Hye, co-president of HAVCCP said, “More than 80 percent of the victims are women and more than half of them are between the ages of 20–30 years old. The family members, incited by the pastors, kidnap the victims and while searching their body, they sometimes make the victims strip. While held captive, the victims are watched at every moment, even while they use the bathroom or take a shower, and even worse, the family members watch the victims urinate. It causes severe mental damage due to the humiliation, which leads to depression.”

According to another official testimony from a woman named Ms. Kim, in a report filed to the police:

“At that time I was six months pregnant. They worked to forcibly convert me during the summer from early in the morning until 11pm at night without giving me any rest. They stole my phone, removed all of the windows from my room, and even supervised me when I went to the toilet. It was humiliating. Imagine forcing a pregnant woman in the dead heat of summer to sit on a hard chair from dawn until well into the night to convert her. I could neither change my clothing nor bathe. When I slept, they placed a member of the church at my side to keep watch for fear that I would try to run away. I was wrung out, a complete and total mess in both mind and body.”

Though physical and emotional abuse of women in South Korea ranks among the most prevalent in the OECD, forcible control of women and violence against them goes unchallenged, as it is largely dismissed as a family feud. According to UNODC statistics, 55% of female homicide victims in Asia are killed by their family members or intimate partners; the figure for men, on the other hand, is 6%.

“With bitter irony, women run the risk of being killed by those who are expected to care for and even protect them,” the U.N. body says.

Choi Yong-ji of the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center believes that neither society nor the authorities take the issue seriously enough. “In Korea, society considers violence inside the family as a personal issue, not society’s issue to consider … (Korean) society should consider it more seriously and the police should react more promptly to the issue,” Choi said.

“Who gave these pastors the authority to confine, shackle, beat, and murder people for their faith?” reads a petition by the Association of Victims of Coercive Conversion Programs. “Their disguise is holy and pious, but their actions show that they are willing to commit murder to arbitrarily convert people’s beliefs. The authorities must face reality and take appropriate action against this practice.”

For more information, visit the HAVCCP’s facebook page dedicated in memory of Ms. Ji In Gu. If you would like to take action to support victims of coercive conversion, please sign the petition to the government calling for action. You may also support the campaign by donating directly.