#MeToo movement in South Korea
spreads to academic sector
By Jennie Oh 
A women's group in Seoul calls for end to sexual harassment and inequality in the workplace. #MeToo movement in South Korea gained traction last month after a public prosecutor came forward with allegations of sexual harassment. Photo by Yonhap.
SEOUL, UPI -- The #MeToo movement in South Korea has spread from the cultural to academic sector, as students and alumni come forward with stories of sexual assault or harassment under authoritative figures, JTBC reported.
This comes after veteran actors Jo Jae-hyun, Yun Ho-jin and Oh Dal Soo, admitted to sexually harassing women during their decades-long careers.
Both actors cancelled their upcoming production plans after the scandal.
On Sunday, 57-year-old actor and professor of theater Han Myung-gu was spotlighted in online communities, as having groped his students during drinking sessions.
Online communities for Seoul-based universities including Seoul Institute of the Arts and Sejong University saw board posts recounting sexual harassment cases.
"Professors wield too much authority over their students," Shin Jeong-uk, Executive Director of a nationwide union for postgraduate students told Yonhap. "It is difficult to change or confront the student's supervising professor as they have influence over the student's thesis, and their eligibility for scholarships as well as assistant jobs."
The #MeToo movement sparked in South Korea after a public prosecutor last month went public with allegations that a senior Justice Ministry official had groped her during a funeral.
She says she found herself demoted after her initial complaint.
After the prosecutor's accusation stirred nationwide controversy, the Justice Ministry launched a special probe committee to investigate the allegations.
57 cops in 'family and child violence unit'
have criminal records - DA
Jeanette Chabalala
Johannesburg, South Africa – Fifty-seven police officers working in the police's Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offenses units (FCS) have criminal records.
This was revealed in a written reply by Police Minister Fikile Mbalula to a Parliamentary question posed by Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Zakhele Mbhele.
Mbhele on Sunday said he was "disturbed" by the revelation. "It is totally unacceptable that the FCS units has compromised members," Mbhele said in a statement.
"The DA will hold Minister Mbalula to account to root out these officers and to replace them with untainted individuals who will diligently bring justice to the victims and survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence."
Mbhele said the members were convicted of at least three cases of culpable homicide, seven of common assault, two of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm, and one instance of pointing a firearm.
Other crimes include driving under the influence, reckless or negligent driving, fraud, loss of firearms and defeating the ends of justice and theft.
"These are patently not the kind of people who should be working with children or the victims of domestic or sexual violence. It is quite clear from the questionable conduct of these members that they cannot be entrusted with the responsibility of addressing the extremely high levels of violence against women and children."
Mbalula should brief Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police on how he intends to root out the officers, he added.
No reduced sentence for sexual offenders:
Turkish family minister
ANKARA
The Turkish government is working on new a regulation which could eliminate the reduction of sentences over good conduct in cases of sexual abuse and violence against women, Turkey’s Family and Social Policies Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya has said.
“As a mother, I want it to be eliminated, and I would stop it this instance if I had the authority,” Sayan Kaya said on Feb. 25 in an interview with private broadcaster CNN Türk.
“But we are working on legal amendments to stop that practice,” she added.
“We see that in England abusers of children younger than 12 years of age and in some countries abusers of children younger than nine years of age receive heavier penalties. We are working on similar regulations,” the minister said.
The Turkish Penal Code gives judges the authority to reduce sentences up to by one sixth considering the suspect’s past, social relations, the impact of the punishment on the suspect’s future and his or her behaviors after the crime and during the trial.
Death penalty for sexual offenders is not on the government’s agenda, Sayan Kaya said, stating that the legislative regulations concerning the sexual abuse of children will include “hormonal treatment following the end of a relavant prison sentence.”
“What we are working on is not emasculation, it is castration, that means the suppression of testosterone hormones,” the minister said.
Her comments came as Turkey is engaged in a heated debate about the abuse and mistreatment of children after the sexual abuse of a four-year-old in the southern province of Adana made headlines on Feb. 10.
I'm unable to find this story except for a few brief references to a 3 y/o being raped by a 20 y/o at a wedding party in Adana.
Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials have responded to the outrage by bringing the issue to the cabinet’s agenda, as ministers called for a legal change that would stipulate harsher punishments for child abusers.
A commission of six ministers has been formed to work on the legislative package and held its first meeting on Feb. 22.
AKP officials stated that harsh punishments would include “chemical castration,” igniting new debate as castration is currently not in Turkish legislation.
Sayan Kaya responded to the discussions concerning the details of regulations, stating that “castration” means the suppression of hormones and it would only be implemented after the accused fully serves their sentence.
She also stated that “death sentence” is not on the commission’s agenda which works on “heavy penalties like the life sentence.”
Rotherham child abuse scandal needs
100 more officers to investigate
Bridie Pearson-jones For Mailonline
The biggest investigation into child sexual exploitation needs 100 more officers to tackle the 'unprecedented scale of abuse' in Rotherham.
More than 1,500 potential victims and 110 suspects have been identified by the National Crime Agency, and figures are expected to rise further.
Paul Williamson, the senior investigating officer on Operation Stovewood, told the Guardian his team so far had only been able to contact 17 percent of the of the 1,510 possible victims due to a shortage of specially trained detectives.
Mr Williamson also said the investigation needed to be as big as Operation Resolve, the investigation into the Hillsborough disaster, as it was comparable in terms of complexity and scale.
'It's a really specialist area, engaging and interviewing vulnerable victims' he said. 'A lot of our victims were children when they were abused but they're now adults and have associated problems as a result of that abuse, including suicidal tendencies, mental health issues, drug and alcohol addiction.
'It's really complex. The progress will necessarily be influenced by the number of officers we've got on the team and we can see that.'
He added he was conscious of demands that are placed across law enforcement in the UK but that he needed 200-250 is officers to complete the task, he currently has 144 officers on Operation Stovewood.
The NCA is conducting a huge investigation in the South Yorkshire town following the revelations in the 2014 Jay Report that children were groomed and abused there.
Professor's Alexis Jay's report sparked national soul-searching when it revealed that the large scale exploitation undertaken by gangs of men had been effectively ignored by police and other agencies for more than a decade.
Eighty percent of the suspects are said to be Pakistani and 90 percent of the victims are white girls.
Operation Stovewood was launched after it was called in by South Yorkshire Police three years ago, and is now the biggest investigation in CSE in the UK.
It is 85 percent funded by the Home Office and 15 percent by South Yorkshire Police, and has cost more than £10 million so far.
More than 34 investigations have come out of Stovewood, and it has led to four individuals being convicted, 38 arrested, 18 charged, and two cautioned.
Shocking Internet child porn spirals upwards as watchdog sees 100% rise in one year
By Ewan Palmer
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) unearthed 13,855 pieces of child abuse last September, more than double the 6,465 they found 12 months previously.
The IWF released the figures as they warned paedophiles are using more and more sophisticated ways to avoid detection online.
IWF researcher Sarah Smith said: "Many of these offenders think they are untouchable. We see hundreds of thousands of sex abuse videos and images including the torture and rape of babies and toddlers.
"We constantly liaise with international authorities to remove illegal content. There's a frustration we can't act more quickly to remove content. Behind every one of these pictures is a victim."
The figures were published after the conviction of scientist and former university lecturer, Dr Matthew Falder, who was jailed for 32 years after admitting to 137 charges at Birmingham Crown Court.
He was found member of online forums and so-called "hurt core" websites, which were devoted to the violent physical and sexual abuse and blackmail of sex abuse victims. The court heard how Falder would masquerade as a woman to manipulate his victims into sending him naked or partially-clothed images before blackmailing them.
He was also found to have posted videos including incestual child rape, and other humiliation videos on the hurt-core websites.
Following his sentencing, Ruona Iguyovwe, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Matthew Falder is a highly manipulative individual who clearly enjoyed humiliating his many victims and the impact of his offending in this case has been significant.
"He deliberately targeted young and vulnerable victims. At least three victims are known to have attempted suicide and some others have inflicted self-harm.
"There was a high degree of sophistication and significant planning by Falder due to his use of encryption software and technology in his electronic communication and the use of multiple fake online identities and encrypted email addresses."
India's 3rd world courts are a nightmare
for female victims of sexual assault
What were you wearing?’: What a woman molested in B’luru
was asked in court
What Ankita* was asked may seem shocking. But it is common for sexual violence survivors to be subjected to this line of questioning in Indian courts.
TNM Staff
Ankita* remembers joking about being asked what she was wearing the day she was allegedly molested by a man near Airlines Hotel in Bengaluru in 2014. She was waiting at the court for her cross-examination when she and her friend joked about this. But as soon as her cross-examination began, Ankita was shocked because that was the first question she was asked.
The incident
Ankita was walking past Airlines Hotel around 8.20 pm when a person sitting on a parked bike allegedly molested her.
The angry 32-year-old placed a foot in front of the tyre of the bike and raised an alarm. She also managed to get his bike keys and memorise the registration number. However, since the bike was in ignition, the perpetrator managed to escape. It had just started raining when the incident happened.
The trial
From what Ankita recounted, it appears that such a line of questioning is quite common with women who have experienced sexual harassment or assault. Even the constable who was with her seemed to know this – he asked her to pin up her top a little higher. Ankita says that while this was unfortunate, he must be looking out for her knowing what happens in court.
When Ankita was asked what she was wearing when she was molested, she was taken aback.
She looked from the defence lawyer to the Public Prosecutor representing her to the judge.
No one seemed to object to the line of questioning. So, Ankita answered the question saying
she was wearing jeans, t-shirt and sweater.
Then she was even asked the colour of her sweater, to which she replied, “Red.” But her attire wasn’t the only thing Ankita was asked about. She was asked about the weather too. And when she said it was raining, she was asked, “Were you drenched?”
The defence counsel then went on to ask about other details like the number of people on the road, whether it was a one-way or two-way road, what direction the accused reached out to grope her and so on.
“The line of questioning was clearly leading towards victim blaming. You think things are changing, you think it’s 2018 and women don’t have to take this shit anymore, but it still happens so casually – in court, in front of a judge,” Ankita told BM.
She also spoke about the prevalence of victim shaming – and not just in courts – which makes women survivors dread taking legal action.
“Every time there is a call from the police station, every time I have to be involved in any way, every time I read an article about it, at every single step I feel like giving up,” she says.
Ankita says that the process of bringing a perpetrator to justice is quite painful and exhausting, and sometimes you may just want to move forward with your life rather than having to recount the same thing over and over again.
A common line of questioning
Though shocking, survivors of sexual violence commonly face such questions in Indian courts.
Sudha Ramalingam, a senior lawyer, says: “These crimes are of an intimate nature, so it is not uncommon for them to ask for specifics. It is also an intimidation tactic, meant to make women uncomfortable. They would also want to find contributory negligence on the victim’s part,” she says.
Contributory negligence is a common law doctrine which seeks to prove the victim was injured in part due to their own negligence, hence removing responsibility from the perpetrator.
Vidya Reddy of Tulir, a Chennai-based NGO working to prevent child sexual abuse, had pointed out to TNM that this is a line of questioning lawyers also take with survivors of child sexual abuse and their mothers. However, she and Sudha both placed the onus on judges to intervene if the questions were intrusive and insensitive.
“We have an adversarial system of justice in India and it is the job of a defence lawyer to behave
the way they do. I think it is wrong to fault a defence lawyer for being nasty. I would entirely
fault the judge if she/he allows the nastiness to continue,” Vidya had said.
But this does not always happen. In fact, a 14-year study by NGO Sakshi from 1996 analysing judges’ attitudes towards women survivors of violence found a majority of them to have “primitive notions” of who is a “good woman”.
90% of judges said they would not choose legal redressal if a female relative was a victim of violence.
74% said that a woman’s first priority should be the preservation of the family even if she faces marital violence.
64% believed that woman also share blame for violence and
68% said that provocative dressing invites sexual assault.
Even child sexual abuse survivors are asked questions which aim to place the blame of the abuse squarely on them or intimidate their mothers.
One woman, Anjana*, who TNM spoke to in 2017, was told by the defence lawyer in court that her daughter, who was seven when she was sexually assaulted at her school, was sexually active. Anjana felt very traumatised and agonised by the statement, which was the lawyer’s aim, she believes.
And the misogyny in the Bengaluru court judgment in the Pascal Mazurier case is another example. The French diplomat was accused by his wife Suja Jones of sexually abusing their daughter in 2012. There were references to Suja’s lifestyle, the clothes she wore, her having male friends and so on. When she was cross-examined in court, it was also implied that she was an immoral woman for having sent explicit photos of her to Pascal and a ‘bad mother’ for have a Caesarean childbirth over a natural one.
*Names changed
Tasmania election: Liberal law delay puts abuse survivors claims on hold
The Australian
MATTHEW DENHOLM
Child abuse survivors have accused Tasmania’s Liberal government of failing victims by delaying the removal of time limits on civil actions against abusers.
Tasmania moved last year to become the last state to abolish the statute of limitations on such cases, with the passage through state parliament of the Limitation Amendment Act 2017.
However, the law was not proclaimed before the state election was called, with the Hodgman government deciding to wait until a National Redress Scheme for survivors of child sex abuse in institutions is adopted.
The state government argues this was flagged when the legislation was being debated, and will give survivors a choice of the national scheme or civil action.
However, The Australian is aware of victims awaiting proclamation of the law, passed by state parliament on November 30, to begin civil proceedings against abusers.
“Why would the state government abandon this reform once it had passed both houses,” asked one man, who has writs ready to sue his abuser as soon as the law is proclaimed.
The controversy threatens to undermine the Liberals’ s stance on law and order, which includes a promise to impose four-year mandatory jail sentences on the worst child sex offenders.
The election will be held this Saturday.
Hobart, Tasmania
Sex abuse at Chilean church school was an
unending 'perverse game': victim
VIÑA DEL MAR: Sexual abuse at the hands of priests marked the childhood of Jaime Concha since the day when, at age 10, he entered a school run by the Marist Brothers religious order in Santiago.
He is now 55 years old and a doctor. After all these years, his case is one of the dozens finally being investigated by the Catholic Church in Chile — a church rocked by the scale of a sex-abuse scandal that tainted the recent visit of Pope Francis.
Concha told AFP his treatment at the hands of the Marist Brothers was like "an everlasting perverse game."
He says he has now broken decades of silence about his childhood trauma to try to come to terms with the devastation it has wreaked on his life since he first entered the order's Alonso de Ercilla school in Santiago.
"There was a real conspiracy where everyone was linked and they were waiting for us," said Concha, referring to the religious brothers. "They used excuses like the scout camp, the vocational exam or the retreat to abuse us."
'Sickening' first communion
Jaime remembers his first holy communion day as "sickening," as he had to receive the communion wafer from the same priest who had abused him.
"As a child, what was I going to say about what happened to me?" asked Concha. "I ended up not talking, being quiet because of fear, because of shame afterwards."
The abuse began in the classroom and continued in school hallways and hidden corners of the school grounds, including the Marist Brothers' living quarters and while away camping with the Boy Scouts.
Jaime directly accused two Marist Brothers, Abel Perez and Jose Monasterio, of abusing him.
Perez was expelled from the community after being investigated for abuse by the church and is currently being prosecuted for abuse of boys in his care. Monasterio has since died.
"Brother Abel would sit me on his legs. He would start talking to me, and all I wanted was for him to do what he had to do and do it quickly, so I did not even listen to what he was saying. It was an excuse to grab me, and then the only thing I could do was almost to try to get out of my own body," recalled Concha.
Years of trauma
Only in August — seven years after Perez had confessed to continually abusing boys over three decades — did the Marist Brothers' community file a complaint with the Chilean prosecutor's office. It accused him of sexually abusing 14 minors in two schools belonging to the order.
The order removed him from all contact with children and sent him to a community residence in Peru, local media reported.
"I listen to that official truth and I'm confronted by traumatic memories," said Concha. "I am the evidence that in Chile, while the Pinochet dictatorship was torturing people and systematically violating human rights, the human rights of me and my classmates at school at the same time, between 1973 and 1978, were also being violated" by the church.
He says "an avalanche" of memories came to him last September when he finally decided to open up about his experiences to a meeting of former students. After 45 years of being "hooked by the terror, by the anguish" that ruined his childhood, Concha said that now, by speaking up, he can save others from suffering his fate.
Supported by the Foundation for Trust — formed by four victims of influential Chilean teaching priest Fernando Karadima — Concha and other victims went to the courts to seek justice.
Karadima was accused in 2010 of abusing children, and in 2011 the Vatican ordered the then 80-year-old priest to retire to a "life of prayer and penitence."
But civil charges against him were dropped by the courts for lack of evidence. — AFP
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