Challenges and Opportunities for a Human Rights Frame in South Korea

Abstract

Korean feminists are keenly aware that transnational feminists emphasize a human rights framework to eradicate violence against women. But in the 1990s, they based their anti-domestic violence campaign on a frame of “preservation of the family” because it was more culturally resonant at the time than a human rights frame. The results include passage of two legislative Acts, failure to implement as intended, and a continued search for a more effective frame. Ironically, the human rights frame has re-emerged as a possible solution.

Keywords

domestic violence feminist movement frame resonance South Korea

Introduction

The 1990s witnessed dramatic changes globally in feminist strategies to address problems common to women across diverse settings. Foremost among these is the problem of violence against women, particularly domestic violence (DV). The recognition that DV is a problem that women share across differences such as race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, and nationality led to global and local debates over how best to address the problem.

At the global level, the successful advocacy campaign for acceptance of “women’s rights as human rights” at the United Nations (UN) Conference on Human Rights in Vienna (July, 1993) established a precedent that quickly became celebrated by global advocates as an appropriate strategy for activists to use to end gender-based violence (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). This principle of women’s rights as human rights was ratified in 1995 by countries that attended the UN Conference on Women in Beijing, including South Korea. But definitions of what practices constitute violence against women and what counts as human rights both quickly became embroiled in accusations of Western feminist “imperialism.” On one hand, transnational feminists were accused of imposing Western values and norms to narrowly define human rights through prioritization of civil and political rights over social and economic rights (such as a right to livelihood and food) and cultural and community rights (such as freedom of religion and traditions). On the other hand, some countries have called for culturally based exceptions, such as religious practices that confine women and give men authority to discipline women (Bunch, 2001; Okin, 2000). Nonetheless, transnational feminist campaigns have continued to support a universal human rights goal of defending all women’s “right to freedom from violence” (Edwards, 2011; Steans, 2007), and global consultants continue to train local policy advocates and non-governmental organization (NGO) activists on how to lobby policymakers (Alvarez, 2000; Zhang, 2009). Even so, experiences at the local level have revealed an array of contextual obstacles to implementing a human rights framework as a strategy to end violence. In some cases, activists have had to search for a more culturally relevant framing strategy to construct violence against women as a local social problem and get it on the national policy agenda. Such is the case in South Korea [The Republic of Korea] (Cheng, 2011; Heo, 2010).

Combating violence at the local level requires change not only in the policy arena (promoted by international agreements such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women [CEDAW] and its formal review system)¹ but also in the broader culture, particularly in democratic regimes where citizens and the media wield considerable influence over policymakers. To do so, as the Korean experience reveals, some feminists believed it was necessary to work within and modify cultural frames rooted in patriarchal values, a strategy that could backfire and reinforce those values. This can be the case even for activists in NGOs clearly identified as women’s human rights organizations.

What lessons do such cases offer for understanding the dilemmas and options for local anti-violence strategizing? First, they illustrate how local activists forge multiple strategies that use the existing system and that vary by context. This potentially expands the repertoire of strategies and framings available to activists in other contexts where a human rights framework may be less viable. Second, they also show that establishing DV as a contextualized social problem is a complex process that requires a long-term commitment on the part of activists as they develop different strategies over time. In the case of South Korea, activists have worked for over two decades to transform how citizens and policymakers conceptualize violence against women and women’s human rights. Our analysis of Korean feminists’ strategizing focuses on the changing dilemmas and opportunities they have confronted in their efforts to change cultural perceptions of DV and to advance women’s human rights.

Research took place at two points in time. Empirical research conducted by the first author in South Korea in 2005 and 2006 on the anti-DV movement and legislative campaign revealed the specific dilemmas that feminists confronted during the 1990s and early 2000s as they struggled to draft, pass, implement, and amend two Acts (one on prevention, one on punishment). Methods included document research, in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 28 key actors from the campaign, and participant observation at meetings and public events. The primary site was the Korea Women’s Hotline (KWH or KWHL), a feminist NGO with 25 branches in the country, founded in 1983. Other sites of research included the Women’s Center for Human Rights, the National Assembly (congress), and the Korean Women’s Associations United (KWAU; a national network with 6 regional sections and member organizations who number has fluctuated between 27 and more than 30 since the 1990s. KWAU lobbies politicians, submits reports to international bodies such as the UN CEDAW Committee, and builds coalitions with other activist organizations in the country and the Asian region). From 2009-2011, follow-up research by both authors focused on new scholarly work on Korean feminism and human rights activities, country reports submitted to international agencies, news items, materials posted on activist organization web pages (KWH, KWAU, Korea Womenlink) and on web pages of “women’s agencies.” These include the former Ministry of Gender Equality (MOGE), now the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF), and the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI). The first author also engaged in informal consultations with feminist scholars, activists, and agency staff as part of her research, teaching, and activist work.

The next section presents a brief overview of relevant transnational debates surrounding DV and introduces the universal human rights framework and the conceptual importance of framing and frame resonance to social change (framing is designed to make an issue understandable and acceptable in a particular context). The second section, “Anti-Violence Activism in 1990s South Korea,” briefly summarizes the anti-DV campaign and passage of two laws in the 1990s, emphasizing strategic framing choices. In the third section, “The Ongoing Search for a Resonant Frame,” we discuss Korean feminists’ ongoing search for an alternative frame. The fourth section, “Context and Change: Current Opportunities and Challenges,” points to contemporary factors related to the emergence of new discourses on human rights, gendered violence, and family crisis.

DV, Women’s Human Rights, and Frame Resonance

Two significant controversies among feminists over DV globally relate to definition/naming and causes. First, from a focus on partner abuse, wife abuse, and woman battering (preferred feminist concepts), scholarly and public discourse has shifted to “family,” “domestic,” and “interpersonal-IPV” violence (see Bevacqua & Baker, 2004; Ferraro, 1996; Mcphail, Busch, Kulkarni, & Rice, 2007). The latter terms are more inclusive but reinforce the idea of a problem that is personal and related to the private sphere of the home. They also hide the fact that women are most often the victims and men most often the perpetrators of such violence. Nonetheless, feminist activists in diverse settings have used the concepts of family/domestic/interpersonal violence to get woman abuse on the policy agenda and to generate resources to combat violence and fund service programs for women (Bovarnick, 2007; Heo, 2010).

A second controversy surrounds identifying causes and solutions. The family/DV literature abounds with proposed interventions and services (Hansen & Harway, 1993; Rothenberg, 2003) that emphasize personal problems such as anger management for perpetrators, self-esteem for victims, and substance abuse for both over arrest or shelters. Korean feminist activists, especially KWH, invest considerable energy in counseling and shelters, but to address structural and cultural factors they focus on institutionalization in the form of policies and laws that criminalize violence, defend victims’ rights, and mandate state support for services.

Theoretical debates also target causes of DV. Is it biology, psychopathology, poverty, cultural norms and stereotypes, institutionalized discrimination, or androcentric legislation (Jasinski, 2001; Kurst-Swanger & Petcosky, 2003)? Feminist scholars from diverse fields agree that studies of DV must be situated within its broader social, cultural, and political context (Lindhorst & Tajima, 2008; Michalski, 2004; Rothenberg, 2003) and that gendered power relations are key variables (DeKeseredy, 2006; Johnson, 2005). As a result, legislative reforms may address individual behavior (e.g., arrest), women’s rights, and/or state responsibilities (Coker, 2000; Hirschman, 1997). This is the case in the United States, South Korea, and elsewhere.

To construct partner abuse as a social problem requiring state intervention, feminist advocates at the global level prioritize eradicating institutionalized gender inequality and discrimination and work to change state-sanctioned cultural practices and patriarchal legislation. This approach positions the state as sharing responsibility for wife abuse. States are complicit because of their failure to prosecute DV compared to other violent crimes against citizens. Failure to act condones or tacitly permits wife abuse. The approach implicitly defines DV as a human rights violation regardless of the fact that it takes place in the home (Meyersfeld, 2003; Thomas & Beasley, 1993). The concept of state complicity helped global feminists broaden the notion of what constitutes human rights violations (originally, only state-sponsored violence) to include violence against women by family members in the home (Charlesworth, 1994; Edwards, 2011).

In the global arena, beginning with the four UN conferences on women that took place between 1975 and 1995, feminist anti-violence advocates strengthened advocacy networks and effectiveness. In the 1990s, they focused international attention on the language of “women’s rights as human rights” and emphasized institutions, laws, and culture as underlying causes or facilitating factors. Violence against women as a human rights violation was first acknowledged at the 1993 UN Conference on Human Rights in Vienna and then approved in the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women later that year in New York.² This established the foundation for a universal human rights claim to bolster the global movement against violence against women. Specifically, local advocates would use global intergovernmental agreements to promote legislative and institutional reforms at home (Friedman, 2003; Keck & Sikkink, 1998). At the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing, despite continued concerns over culturally based differences in definitions of what constitutes violence, most delegates (with some reservations and objections) ratified the 1993 Declaration, thereby supporting a universal human rights framework as the strategic approach to combat violence against women (Bunch, 2001; Merry, 2003).

One critique of this approach is that it homogenizes women’s experiences and leads to over-simplified strategies that do not work in all contexts. Another is that the human rights strategy is based on Eurocentric concepts of law and citizenship that are not universally applicable and that prioritize some rights over others. Some see in this a new form of Western/Northern feminist hegemony that underestimates the importance of local cultural, legal, political, and other conditions and denies local feminist autonomy (Grewal, 1999; Robinson, 2003). In some contexts, the human rights frame has provoked a backlash against Western universalism and has divided local, transnationally connected scholar-activists from feminists and activists who are more locally oriented, potentially affecting chances of success.

Those who support universalism (e.g., Nussbaum, 1999; Okin, 2000) have warned that a shift to cultural relativism would be a mistake. Feminists should defend “all” women’s rights as a matter of principle because “patriarchy and the devaluing of women are almost universal” even when forms vary (Charlesworth, 1994, p. 62). A women’s human rights framework could break down patriarchal defenses by focusing on women’s commonalities and their humanity, without arguing sameness or emphasizing differences (Bunch, 2001; Okin, 2000, p. 39). Consequently, anti-violence strategies are not so clear-cut as being “global” or “local.” Locally based activists can pick and choose from a range of discourses and strategies supported by the transnational human rights frame and then “translate” and adapt them to the local political-legal and cultural context (Zhang, 2009, p. 66). Even so, “transnationalized advocacy repertoires . . . [do] not always translate smoothly in local policy and movement arenas” (Alvarez, 2000, p. 51).

Social movement theorists have proposed that “frame resonance” is critical to the success or failure of local movements. Framing is defined as “the conscious strategic efforts by groups of people to fashion shared understandings of the world and of themselves that legitimate and motivate collective action” and change goals (McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996, p. 6). Every social movement must develop an effective frame as part of its “cultural work” (Goodwin, Jasper, & Polletta, 2001, p. 5) and this is what feminist translation of the human rights framework should contribute. A frame identifies a social problem, attributes blame, suggests corrective action, and assigns responsibility for correcting the problem (Bayard de Volo, 2004, p. 717). It involves a “cognitive process wherein people bring to bear background knowledge to interpret an event or circumstance and to locate it in a larger system of meaning” (Oliver & Johnston, 2005, p. 193). Frame resonance, then, is the “relationship between a movement organization’s interpretive work and its ability to influence broader public understanding” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998, p. 17). Frames that resonate with pre-existing beliefs can be highly persuasive and make proposed changes seem familiar and less threatening (Einwohner, Hollander, & Olson, 2000). Frames also may elicit strong emotions that can motivate individuals and promote group solidarity (Goodwin et al., 2001). Recent case studies suggest that “frames with the greatest mobilizing capacity [may be] those which maintain a balance between resonance with and opposition to existing cultural values” (Hewitt & McCammon, 2005, p. 34).

In the global anti-violence movement, the human rights frame establishes violence against women as a social, not a private, problem. It designates both legislation guaranteeing women’s rights to freedom from violence and legislation to punish perpetrators as proper corrective actions, and it assigns responsibility for corrective action to the state. But where the concept of human rights is problematic and could increase conflict, local movements may need to construct alternative frames and make “strategic discursive accommodations” to influence the state or the media or the public. Frames with cultural resonance, however, may delay transforming cultural understandings of gender and power relations. In some cases, they may operate as “self-imposed censorship” of more clearly feminist rhetoric and demands in a trade-off designed to broaden the base of support and forge alliances with other movements (Alvarez, 2000). Although Alvarez was referring specifically to democratic politics in Chile, her comments reflect the experiences of Korean feminists’ struggle to forge a broad coalition to establish DV as a social problem requiring state intervention.³

Anti-Violence Activism in 1990s South Korea

Korean women’s political activism dates back to the colonial period when a “feminist movement,” comprised of women educated in Christian schools, emerged in support of nationalism, independence, and women’s rights (Yoon Louie, 1995). A progressive women’s movement emerged in the 1970s and developed through women’s involvement in coalitions of civil society groups struggling for workers’ rights, nationalism, peace and reunification with North Korea, and democratization. As a result, Korean feminists’ understanding of women’s oppression was linked to structural forms of oppression—patriarchy, imperialism, militarism, capitalism.⁴

In 1983, the Korean Women’s Hotline-KWH, was founded as the first civil society association to focus specifically on violence against women. It has 25 branches and 13 sexual violence counseling centers across the country. KWH is a self-proclaimed feminist human rights organization that advances women’s social position through gender equality in family, work, and society; protects women from all kinds of violence; and contributes to “peace and democracy,” a new culture of family based on equality, and a “peaceful society free from violence and discrimination.” Most recently, KWH’s work has focused on several strategic areas, each with respective staff and volunteers: an anti-domestic violence movement, a family equality and peaceful community movement, a spousal property partnership movement, a local women’s media ovement, and other activities promoted by its Education Committee, Policy Committee, and International Solidarity Program. The KWH’s organizational structure also includes four “affiliated organizations”–a Domestic Violence Shelter, a Domestic Violence Center, a Sexual Assault Center, and a Consultation Center.⁵

In 1993, following a 3-year campaign, KWH succeeded in getting Acts on the Punishment of Sexual Assault Crimes and on the Protection of Victims passed. KWH has been instrumental in implementation of the Acts and receives state funding for victim services. Shortly after, they focused on passing legislation against wife abuse. They proposed two Acts—the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Victim Protection Act (providing for a range of services to be funded by the state [a new Ministry for Gender Equality]) and the Special Act for Punishment of the Crime of Domestic Violence (focusing on perpetrators and to be administered by the Ministry of Justice). These Acts passed in 1997 after an intensive process of coalition building, public forums, media coverage of the issue, and lobbying of legislators.

KWH activists worked closely with KWAU leadership who organized a coalition of 22 civic organizations into a National Campaign Center for Legislation on Domestic Violence Prevention. After much discussion and consultation with allies in the coalition and the National Assembly, KWH and KWAU core feminists decided not to use a human rights frame. Instead, they selected a more culturally resonant frame: “preservation of the family.” Some feminists fought for a human rights frame on the basis of feminist principles, but they were outnumbered by those concerned that human rights were not understood well enough by policymakers, journalists, or the public (Heo, 2010). At the time, the country faced a number of problems that both the public and policymakers associated with the family as an institution: rising divorce rates, one of the lowest birth rates in the world, and a lower than desired labor force participation rate for women (S. S. Moon, 2006). In this context, the anti-DV movement could be positioned as addressing concerns over family decline.⁶ The media publicized (and continues to do so) cases of wife murder and of battered women who killed batterers, emphasizing the lack of legislation to protect victims and using these cases as indicators of families in need of public support. The state at the time was (and remains) concerned over care for the aging population and children and over economic competitiveness and growth. Improving women’s status, removing legal barriers to their education and employment, and promoting “healthy families” were state priorities (Park, 2005, 2010).

When Korean feminist activists sought to place wife abuse on the policy agenda, their goal was to end patriarchy’s hold on the most private space, the home. They expected to confront culturally rooted patriarchal ideology. By establishing DV as a social problem and a crime, they also would establish state authority and responsibility to intervene in “private” family affairs. Given the high level of public respect for democratic state authority in the 1990s, they hypothesized that state engagement would play a crucial role in the public’s understanding of DV as a social problem. State financial and institutional support also would be needed to implement both punishment and prevention measures. The framing of “preservation of the family” was to be the first step in the longer-term process of eventual cultural and legal re-construction of the family. This frame also was more acceptable to members of some important civic groups that joined the coalition⁷ than “radical” feminist language on patriarchy and women’s rights. Even legislators who supported the Acts asked for a toned-down rhetoric that would emphasize the preservation of the family. A more culturally acceptable frame was “a necessary strategy to encourage agreement considering the level of consciousness of our society at the time.”⁸ A leading activist also explained as follows:

We sought institutionalization . . . inclusion within the existing system . . . in accord with widespread social consciousness and the spirit of the law at the time . . . We chose to stress that eliminating domestic violence helps to prevent the breakdown of families, it strengthens them.⁹

A majority of anti-DV activists at the time accepted that defining the problem could not be a matter of feminist philosophy or principles given the social and political context. (Others were ambivalent or opposed.) They accepted that transformative change would require a long-term commitment, creation of new political opportunities, and overcoming cultural obstacles. But first, they wanted to get DV on the policy agenda and into the public consciousness. Subsequently, they planned to build on the implementation of the Acts to deconstruct the very concept of family itself and challenge the status quo. Feminists, especially the KWH, fully expected to be involved in interpretation and implementation, just as they had been for the earlier sexual assault Acts.

The fact that the anti-DV Acts were passed in 1997 was widely considered a genuinely revolutionary event at the time. However, feminists’ celebration was short-lived. They were shocked to find themselves shut out of interpreting and implementing the Acts and even denied state funding for the KWH’s long-standing service programs for DV victims. As the Acts began to be implemented, they were dismayed at how the frame of family preservation was used by the criminal justice system and new, non-feminist victim counseling centers¹⁰ (funded by the state) that tend to encourage women to “forgive and forget” and to excuse perpetrator behavior (i.e., judges and police supported husband’s authority). Feminists understood then that the very appeal of the frame “preservation of the family” (its cultural and political resonance) facilitated co-optation of the intent of the Acts (Heo, 2010).

Because of co-optation of the Acts, the overall movement suffered a period of demobilization and fragmentation. But core activists quickly moved to address the situation. Amendments to the Acts were introduced in 2002 and in 2006 to address problems with implementation (i.e., strengthen police intervention and victims’ rights). In the case of the Prevention Act, in 2006 language was modified from a purpose of preventing and protecting victims “in order to nurture and promote healthy families” to a purpose of “prevent DV and protect and support victims.” In the case of the Punishment Act, language continued to be problematic. Phrasing emphasizes the purpose as “to recover peace and stability for families and to nurture healthy families.” In 2002, the phrase “to protect the human rights of victims and family members” was added. These minor textual changes alone could not transform political or cultural discourses on DV nor could they resolve problems of implementation in the criminal justice system or in non-feminist victim counseling centers. Those required legal and institutional changes.

Some feminists involved in the anti-DV movement decided in the early 2000s to initiate a process of self-reflection and evaluation of their experience. Through a series of discussions, they interrogated the ways in which the anti-DV movement had developed and how they had conceptualized success (passage of the Acts). And they analyzed how their frame decisions related to specific contextual conditions at the time. They began to work on constructing a more effective frame to redress the unsolved problem of wife abuse and to take advantage of and even create new political opportunities through ongoing educational and lobbying work, including with the then newly-established MOGE and a congressional committee charged with proposing legislation to support gender equality and eliminate discrimination in existing laws.

The Ongoing Search for a Resonant Frame

As an outgrowth of self-reflection and the evaluation of their earlier work, in 2001 activists began to revive the anti-DV movement and re-inserted DV into public and political discourse. They did this at the national, state, and local levels through media and education campaigns and lobbying of government officials. Activists at KWH and KWAU branches throughout the country became important to this work. Women’s human rights were at the heart of the project but not the only frame. Rather, activists strategized on how to make human rights more familiar by linking it to other, already familiar, discourses.

In 2006, on the 8th anniversary of the enactment of the anti-DV Acts, KWH held a series of public forums on DV. The first meeting, held in Seoul and attended by more than 50 activists, focused on “Rethinking Domestic Violence From the Perspective of Women’s Human Rights.” Those present affirmed the principle that DV should be addressed through analysis of gendered power relations and the concept of women’s human rights. But they also agreed on the need for an alternative, culturally resonant, and politically viable frame that would be a bridge to the concept of human rights and facilitate its gradual introduction into public discourse. They opted for the “peace frame” that local activists already used in their work (Korea Women’s Hotline, 2006).

The peace frame links peace in the nation, the community, and the home. It is more familiar to the public than the concept of human rights because of the discourse generated by an active peace movement since the 1990s. It could be tied to a newly emerging political discourse that stressed promoting a “harmonious and egalitarian” family (replacing the “healthy family” and “family preservation” discourses). One example of KWH’s use of a peace frame to bridge the concept of human rights comes from the annual “Week of Eradicating Violence against Women,” inaugurated in 1992. Week-long activities included a film series, information dissemination at local events and gatherings, news items, educational programs, songs and poems, among others. A nice example is a song from a special KWH event held in 2004, “Flapping for Freedom.” Sung by activists during flash mobs held in five major cities, it also appeared in an online campaign on the KWH website. The “peace song” (for which some singers covered their arms with purple cloths and flapped them “like butterfly wings of peace”) illustrates the bridging function:

I don’t like violence and discrimination, oh no, I don’t like sex trafficking, sexual violence. Equal relationship, oh yes. Men and women are equal but discrimination still exists. We want a gender-equal and peaceful world. Why are human rights of women neglected? We want to be free from violence. We like peace, we want peace, please give us peace.¹¹

Another example is a program carried out around the country by local KWH activists and known as “sowing the peace seed” and “sprouting peace buds for women’s rights.” It educates the public about the need to end all forms of violence (e.g., sexual assault, DV, child abuse, trafficking). Again, activists disseminate information at community events, organize film festivals, and attend meetings with neighbors and local businesses to recruit them in fighting DV and other forms of violence. For example, activists from one town reported in 2011 that a mothers’ group, the elementary school’s parent association, a shopkeepers’ co-op, the police station, five stores, and four hair salons participated in violence prevention education and activism.¹²

Peace discourse is appealing and familiar because of three decades of public discussions of possible reunification with North Korea and widespread desire for peace following decades of conflict and militarism. KWH and other feminist organizations were active in the peace movement from the start, and they belong to a coalition for national reunification with students and the democracy movement. Women Making Peace (founded in 1997) has created national and transnational networks of activists, advocates, sex workers, and academics who address links between militarism, sexual violence, human trafficking, DV, and human rights violations (K. Moon, 2007).¹³ The movement links peace to overcoming hierarchies such as state over individual and men over women. In this respect, the discursive theme used by KWH (“peaceful communities, egalitarian families”) intersects with that of the anti-violence and pro-democracy movements and the concept of women’s rights. Important to its usefulness, aside from its resonance with the public, is the fact that it is not associated with Confucian ideology or social structure in the way that “family preservation” and “women’s duty as wives and mothers” are.¹⁴ KWH activists have used it successfully to invite men’s participation in building a peaceful society, community, family, and relationships.

Some feminist activists believe the time has arrived to use the concept of human rights to articulate “a woman’s right to a life free from violence.” But they are aware of a need to challenge the vernacularization of the concept and its widespread use for a variety of issues, some important but others that trivialize and distort the meaning of the concept. For example, our review of news items in which “human rights” appeared in the Korea Times (online) revealed that the general public and the media refer to the human rights of students (in articles retrieved on November 1, 2010; September 8, 2011; and October 5, 2011), immigrants (numerous news items from 2009-2011), and sexual assault survivors (March 23, 2010). Articles also discuss the supposition that human rights protections of privacy should apply to sex offenders and their families (December 19, 2010) and even to a serial killer (February 1, 2009). Gender bias in textbooks also is referred to as a “human rights violation” (October 24, 2010). On one hand, this frequent use of the concept of human rights suggests a growing interest in and familiarity with rights issues in the media and perhaps the general public. On the other hand, it reveals that there is much confusion regarding the exact definition of what constitutes a human right¹⁵ versus more clearly defined rights such as a woman’s right to work or the right of students to not be subjected to corporal punishment.

Still, some feminists complained in interviews that using the concept of human rights for too many issues makes even more difficult their task of educating the public and legislators on proper usage. One example was given by Kim Yu Eun Kyung, head coordinator of international solidarity programs at KWH during an interview on June 23, 2006: “Smokers talk about their human rights to smoke . . . it is really misused . . . [now] everything is about human rights . . .” Feminists also point to political and public resistance to the concept of “women’s human rights” because of claims that it emphasizes the individual over the family (a cultural issue), or that it asks for “extra protections” and “unwarranted advantages” for women.¹⁶ Ironically, the problem for human rights discourse has shifted from one of it being unfamiliar to one of it being so familiar as to have potentially lost its power to have an impact.

It wasn’t until Korea sought rights for the “comfort women” (forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese during World War II) that Korean feminists were introduced to the transnational “women’s rights as human rights” framework at the UN conference on human rights held in Vienna in 1993 (Yoon Louie, 1995). Even after South Korea ratified the CEDAW convention in 1984, neither feminists nor the media nor the public were introduced to the concept and only a few legislators received information on the convention or knew of its ratification. (In Korea, ratification means that it should be treated as law in Korea.) During their self-reflection activities, Korean feminists became more aware of their own problems with interpretation and disagreements and embarked on a program of education for themselves. But CEDAW per se is still unfamiliar to most citizens and many policymakers (Y. S. Cho, 2000).

Context and Change: Current Opportunities and Challenges

By 2011, some features of the Korean context that made the implementation of a human rights frame difficult in the 1990s had changed significantly. The country was entering its third decade of democracy, and civil society organizations expect to participate in policymaking. Women’s education and employment remain policy priorities and, in fact, women have greatly increased their educational levels and labor force participation, including in public administration (Choe, 2010).¹⁷ Women elected to the National Assembly increased from 5 in 1992 to 47 ( 15.67%) in 2012 (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2014; Paik, 2011).¹⁸ About half are conservatives and half progressives. The number of bills introduced that focus on women’s or gender equality issues increased from 6 each between 1988-1992 and 1992-1996 to 23 for the period 1996-2000, 27 for 2000-2004, and 61 for 2004-2008. About half the bills in the latter period were introduced by the MOGE’s congressional standing committee (Gender Equality Committee), often with KWAU backing (Oh, 2008). A National Commission on Human Rights, founded in 2001, is charged with, among other things, “redressing women’s human rights violations” and “developing [legal] instruments . . . suitable for the 21st century and consistent with the universal standard of human rights provided internationally” (E. Kim, 2001, abstract; S. U. Kim, 2007).

Although studies conducted by the KWDI in 2008 confirmed a continued gap between practices in state agencies and public awareness of women’s rights (Hwang, 2009), other evidence suggests that feminist activists are finding a more favorable context for promoting women’s human rights and advancing the fight against DV. Below, we discuss five factors that contribute to this more favorable context.

The first factor is the country’s gender equality management system, headed since 2002 by the MOGE (and its successor, MOGEF) with a staff of 220 in 2011 (Hwang, 2009; Paik, 2011). This is a well-developed network of 45 agencies. They are backed by cumulative legislative reforms since the 1970s that address a wide array of gender issues that range from women’s rights in the family to anti-discrimination in work to increasing women’s political participation (e.g., through quotas). Gender equality legislation was most prolific in the 1990s with the full transition to democracy and the support of presidential administrations in the late 1990s to the mid-2000s (E. Kim, 2001).

The first women’s “agency” was the Office of Women’s Welfare (in the Ministry of Health and Welfare, 1981) followed by the KWDI and the National Committee to Review Women’s Policies (both in 1983), and a Special Women’s Affairs Committee in the National Assembly (1994; E. Kim, 2001).¹⁹ In response to international criticism of women’s continued low status and pressure from women’s and pro-democracy movements, in 1998 Gender Equality Offices in five ministries and a Presidential Commission on Women’s Affairs were established. The Gender Discrimination Prevention and Relief Act was enacted in 1999 as the first Korean legislation that implemented CEDAW principles (Y. S. Cho, 2000; Jung, 2006). In 2011, MOGE began to promote gender mainstreaming, gender training, and in government agencies, program evaluations and coordination of policies related to gender equality and family life. The gender equality management system has extended to local politics and policymaking. By law, local governments must establish women’s offices and develop ordinances and programs to promote “women’s development.” Schools must teach about domestic and dating violence and sexual harassment, and must encourage more girls to study for careers in science and technology. Branches of KWH and Korea Womenlink often provide local education and work with local governments on policymaking.

Not all democratic administrations have supported institutionalization of gender issues. In 2008 and 2009, then newly elected²⁰ president Lee Myung-bak announced that he would eliminate the MOGE. The result was rapid mobilization of women’s and pro-democracy activists in support of the Ministry. Lee relented but slashed the budget and MOGE’s authority by removing children and youth programs; he also eliminated gender equality offices in five ministries. This led to intense lobbying by civil society groups that forced a partial policy reversal. In 2011, children’s and youth programs (primarily educational and welfare) and their budgets were returned to MOGEF (Paik, 2011). The response to these threats to the Ministry indicated widespread citizen support for policies and programs that target family life and advance women’s status.

Importantly, MOGEF has maintained a system of consultation with women’s movement groups and feminist scholars since its founding. Consultations are not to “rubber stamp” state policies. Feminist NGOs’ demands and scholars’ insights into contemporary issues can influence MOGEF’s programmatic and policy changes, though much depends on the broader political climate. Collaboration has had its ups and downs, but KWAU and other feminist networks exert considerable influence whether as collaborators or as critics.

The second factor is nationalism and national pride. Post-colonial nationalism in South Korea has been a project to “restore and preserve the nation’s cultural solidarity and distinctiveness” and replace “wounded pride with healthful self-esteem” (H. K. Kim, 2009, p. 109). This operates both for and against feminist goals. For example, conservative nationalist appeals have defended patriarchal traditions, Confucianism, and a “traditional family” ideology, especially in periods of rapid and destabilizing social and economic change. But feminist activists also have become adept at using nationalism to bolster claims for women’s rights. During the anti-DV campaign in the 1990s, feminists appealed to nationalist sentiment among conservative legislators. They pointed out that there were “good laws” against violence against women not only in “developed” Western societies such as the United States, England, and Germany, but also in the poor, “developing” countries of Southeast Asia. By comparing South Korea with both “advanced” and nearby “developing” countries, activists pressured legislators to enact anti-DV legislation so South Korea would be more “advanced.”

Recent campaigns to reform family law also have appealed to nationalism. Legal scholars and activists have been able to strike down discriminatory practices in divorce law, inheritance law, and most recently (2005) the hoju headship system that subordinated wives. Under this system, only men were heads of households and could legally register and represent a family; single women and wives could not. After 50 years of attempts to overturn the hoju system, success came with use of a nationalist discourse that endorsed the idea of a genuine traditional Korean family system that is “egalitarian,” in contrast to a family system based on Confucianism and foreign values brought in by former colonial occupiers. S. U. Kim (2007) argues that this “use of context-specific logic and rhetoric constitutes one of the most successful efforts to gain wider popular support for a feminist goal” (p. 117).²¹ It also set a precedent for subsequent legal reforms such as defeat of discriminatory property settlement rules for divorce suits (that fail to recognize the economic and social contributions of women’s unpaid domestic labor).

National pride and/or international pressure and embarrassment also may explain why recent administrations seem to be more responsive to international pressure than in the past. Only after it was elected to a 6-year term on the inaugural UN Human Rights Council in 2006 did South Korea accede to the Optional Protocol to the CEDAW Convention that establishes the same personal rights for husband and wife. This election enhanced the country’s international standing and opened the way for local advocates to demand implementation of CEDAW and other human rights agreements. Following Korean Ban Ki-moon’s appointment as UN Secretary General in 2007, leaders sought to enhance South Korea’s status in the UN. Korea became a member of the Executive Committee of the new UN Women agency for which the Lee administration committed an unprecedented US$4.7 million and pledged to develop joint projects with the agency (Paik, 2011).

A more recent source of embarrassment that may present new opportunities for advancing women’s rights claims is the news that South Korea has fallen on international rankings of gender equality, women’s social and economic status, and women’s empowerment. The country, ranked as the world’s 11th largest economy in this period, dropped to 68th on the 2008 Gender Empowerment Measure and to 110th in 2013—a decline from its much higher ranking of 53 in 2006 —in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Reports. It also ranked among the five lowest countries on the World Economic Forum’s 2010 Gender Gap Index and was sixth lowest in 2012.

The third factor is an observable increase in the influence of the international human rights regime, particularly the CEDAW periodic review process (held at 4-year intervals). Although CEDAW is a law without sanctions, it is part of a global system of law that proposes international standards of “civilization” that include the concept of human rights (Merry, 2003). In this political context, human rights agreements can be used by citizens to hold the state accountable for implementation of the international human rights agreements that they ratified (Y. S. Cho, 2000; Steans, 2007).

In addition, the CEDAW system does important cultural work that supports local rights lobbying by articulating principles and demonstrating how they apply to countries. It also promotes a cultural system based in secular modernity and that contributes to “a process of continually creating new meanings and practices” (Merry, 2003, p. 947). Its significance “lies in its capacity to shape cultural understandings and to articulate and expand a vision of rights” (p. 973) and in the fact that it establishes human rights as “the benchmark for the assessment of good governance and good governments” (p. 968)—a powerful ideological tool. Over time, South Korea’s official country reports that we reviewed that were submitted to the CEDAW Committee in 1993, 1998, 2003, 2007, and 2011 have become more detailed and sophisticated in content and exhibit increased understanding and acceptance of the language and ideology of human rights. This is true of “shadow” reports that we reviewed that were submitted by KWAU in those same years. Shadow reports, prepared by women’s NGOs at the invitation of the CEDAW Committee, are submitted at the same time as the official country report. Over time, KWAU reports have shifted from a supportive language showing solidarity with state feminists (1998) to sharp criticism of government progress in eliminating discrimination against women (Y. S. Cho, 2000; Paik, 2011).²² These changes bode well for the feasibility of placing more emphasis on a human rights frame for fighting DV and discrimination because state feminists have close ties with feminist NGOs and because criticism causes embarrassment when made public. In fact, some political analysts already credit feminist activism with playing a key role in the implementation of CEDAW principles in South Korea. The First CEDAW Impact Study claimed that progress in women-related policy building “was not the result of the government’s own initiative either to comply with CEDAW or to pursue policies to achieve the goal of gender equality, but that of the NGOs’ continuous demands and powerful lobbying” (Y. S. Cho, 2000, p. 194).

The fourth factor identified with a more favorable context for anti-DV activism and other rights proposals are the country’s skilled and committed activists and politically astute feminist organizations such as the KWAU, KWH, and the new Korea Womenlink. KWH and Korea Womenlink both have activist branches throughout the country. Passage of anti-sexual assault and anti-DV Acts in the 1990s firmly established women’s movements “as a social force with which the state has to reckon” (S. S. Moon, 2002, p. 492; K. S. Cho, 2010). Feminist organizations not only have shown skill at taking advantage of political opportunities that opened up during the transition to democracy, they have succeeded in creating political opportunities through their networking with other organizations and their sustained lobbying, media campaigns, and educational activities that draw attention to women’s human rights issues at both the national and local levels. During periods of high levels of cooperation between the government and the women’s movement between1997-2007, a large number of women activists also entered state positions where many continue to support feminist goals and strengthened state−NGO collaboration (S. K. Kim & Kim, 2011; Park, 2010). Both KWAU and KWH have become more involved in formal institutional politics over time (Jung, 2006) precisely as more women have increased their participation in public administration (Choe, 2010).²⁹

Contemporary Korean feminist activists show keen understanding of the cultural dimensions of political structures, the “legal and political traditions, systems, and rules” through which human rights acquire meaning (Polletta, 2004, p. 103). They have learned the hard way that cultural resonance and movement success are not the same and that seeking resonance can be a costly choice (see Ferree, 2003). They have developed a broader, more flexible repertoire of frames and strategies than in the 1990s and for different types of issues and audiences. Both feminist organizations and MOGE/F and KWDI staff participate in regional rights networks such as the Asia Pacific Forum on Women and the International Women’s Rights Action Watch-Asia Pacific where they receive training, compare strategies, and support each other’s initiatives. As a result, feminist activists outside the state and many feminists inside state bureaucracies share a common language. However, insiders must operate under political constraints that rein in the rhetoric and demands that feminist outsiders remain free to espouse.

The final factor we highlight as playing a crucial role in contributing to a more favorable context is the continued discourse of family crisis. The discourse of family crisis has led to reforms targeting family life and women’s employment since 1963 and provided the first rationale for state intervention to stabilize and improve family life and advance women’s education. State discourse targets problems that affect the family as an institution (such as low marriage rates, high divorce rates, low birth rates, decline in care for the elderly, a preference for male children) and concern for the country’s economic and social future (S. S. Moon, 2006).²³ In the recent past, state discourse has emphasized “healthy families” and “family preservation”; more recently it has emphasized “harmonious family and work” as a strategy to promote combining marriage and work for both men and women.

Feminists have strategically linked this discourse to problems like violence against women and to discrimination and denial of women’s individual rights. They have been able to tie family crisis discourse to the principle of women’s human rights. They point to women’s unhappiness with male control and violence, lack of support for families with children and for employed mothers, and discrimination against married women in employment as causes of high divorce rates, low fertility, and a lower than desired labor force participation rate for women. MOGEF also links these issues in its policy work. The feminist theme of “egalitarian families” as a means to “harmony” has resonated with MOGEF and other agencies; it opens the possibility of programming for men in families (shared housework and parenting). However, feminists need to be vigilant to avoid co-optation and misapplication of these themes. For example, the 5th minister of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, Paik Hee-young (2009-2011), called for “gender equality” that involves changing both men and women and not blaming men alone for couples’ problems, including DV. On one hand, the focus on transforming family structure and relations may support feminists’ goal of re-conceptualizing the Korean family through legal and cultural change (S. S. Moon, 2002). On the other hand, the focus on family and women by a single agency (MOGEF) may interfere with advancing women’s rights and wind up reinforcing patriarchal values, as both KWAU and the CEDAW Committee warned in their 2011 reports on South Korea. In her message to the public on the ministry’s webpage, Cho Yoonsun, newly appointed minister at the end of 2013, continued the discourse of “healthy families,” “safe society,” “coexistence of work and family” and also the “realization of gender equality.”³⁰

Media coverage of family crisis, violence, and human rights issues and research on violence have increased in recent years ( (International Organization for Migration, 2011; J. Kim & Emery, 2003; S. K. Kim & Kim, 2011; B. Kim, Titterington, Kim, & Wells, 2010). An article published in the Korea Herald (2010, April 20) reported an increase in the number of people reported as killed by DV from 69 in 2010 to 79 in 2011. Of the victims, 82.3% were wives murdered by husbands, and 17.7% were men murdered by wives (often but not always after long-term abuse).

A review that we conducted of news items from 2009-2011 on the Korea Times website revealed not only a proliferation of social problems identified as “human rights” issues but also growing public outrage over sexual assault, sexual harassment, marital rape, and wife murder. Outrage focused on the low number of cases prosecuted or convicted and the even lower number of sentences served (see also Choe, 2011).

Interestingly, two national surveys funded by the MOGEF in 2010 and 2013 (of 3,800 and 5,000 respondents respectively) found that more than 70% in 2010 and 80% in 2013 of both women and men interviewed knew about the anti-DV laws and that most acquired this information from the media (International Organization for Migration, 2011; MOGEF, 2013). But few respondents (less than 15%) believed that policies and laws have reduced DV. Statistics released by the Ministry of Justice also are revealing: only 10% of some 12,200 DV cases resulted in charges in 2009. A White Paper released by the Korean National Policy Agency in 2011 also revealed that the number of cases of DV reported declined from a high of 16,408 in 2003 to a low of 7,359 in 2010. The White Paper also revealed that detentions by police declined from 7.3% to an even lower 0.8% in 2010. Not surprisingly, the survey funded by MOGEF found that only 2.1% of battered women contact the police for help and that trust in the police is low. Respondents were almost unanimous in stating a need for stronger punishment of offenders.²⁴

Public awareness of violence issues has improved due to the media attention given to “marriage migrants,” mainly young women from countries such as China, Vietnam, and the Philippines, who marry Korean men.²⁵ MOGEF and organizations that work with these migrants, such as Women Migrants Human Rights Center and Emergency Support Center for Migrant Women, estimate that approximately 180,000 marriage migrants resided in South Korea in 2010 and they represent 10% of all new marriages each year. They also represent 42% of all divorce cases filed annually. Government studies reveal that migrant women suffer a disproportionate amount of DV, marital rape, and murder by husbands. This led to the 2006 Policy for Social Integration of Families with Migrant Women with a goal of preventing “infringement of the human rights of migrant women in international marriages” (Jang, 2007, p. 7). Another goal is to preserve families where possible, through couple counseling, teaching women about Korean culture and men about wives’ culture, Korean language training for wives, job training for wives, and other types of support.

Media and state attention to the problems of migrant women could lead to support for Korean women. KWH in particular has connected the situation of migrant women to problems faced by all women, including poor implementation of existing anti-DV legislation, protection measures that favor male perpetrator rights over those of women victims, counseling focused on reconciliation, and unwillingness of police and judges to arrest and convict perpetrators (Korean National Police Agency, 2011). Another issue is marital rape. Although national surveys find that between 3% and 5% of married women report being victims of sexual violence by male partners (International Organization for Migration, 2011; B. Kim et al., 2010), since 1970 the Supreme Court has consistently rejected the concept of marital rape, alleging that sex between spouses cannot be rape. Yet several cases of marital rape of migrant women by Korean spouses have received successful convictions since 2006, leading the CEDAW Committee to predict in 2008 that “marital rape cases might follow a different path in the future due to precedents set in earlier cases.”²⁶ The idea that only migrant women have received such protection from the courts could generate a nationalist response and public conversation on why South Korean women have not received the same rights and treatment as immigrant women.

Opportunities tied to political regime change come with new challenges. Most official discourse on family problems like DV and women’s employment shifted under the Lee administration to promoting the “harmonious co-existence of work and family life” (harmony is the current buzzword); MOGEF’s theme for 2011 was “Happy citizens, warm society, and proud Korea.” The emphasis on co-existence of family life and work continues to be a major theme of President Park’s administration. Still, feminist organizations, gender-aware politicians, and state women’s agencies continue to work on future revisions of family laws in order to “transform the very basic fabric of gender relations” in South Korea (Park, 2005, p. 14) and lead to a “family model better tuned to current and future times” (Paik, 2011, p. 36). Relevant policies proposed by state agencies include promoting flexible working hours, childcare support, programs for children and adolescents, and training for fathers/husbands for childcare and household tasks. They do not yet include implementation of legally established punishment for crimes against women in the anti-DV Acts, despite apparent growing public support for punishment revealed through surveys. On the plus side, in 2011 a joint task force was formed by representatives of state agencies and civil society organizations to map out a comprehensive plan to prevent DV. The goal was to better protect victims. As a first step, the National Assembly passed revisions to the anti-DV acts giving police officers more power to take emergency measures and establishing victims’ right to confront abusers and to take out court orders of protection.²⁷

Conclusions

This article provides insight from South Korea on how a local social movement developed strategies for social change that have varied over time in response to changing features of the context. It reveals how activists not only took advantage of political opportunities but also worked to create opportunities. It discusses mistakes made, particularly in the choice of a culturally resonant frame during the anti-DV campaign of the 1990s, and corrective measures.

In the context of South Korea in the 1990s, the women’s human rights framework that was preferred by transnational and Korean feminists was considered too radical; human rights as a concept was not well understood by legislators or the public (and by many activists themselves). Following passage of the anti-DV Acts in 1997 and their co-optation, a number of changes took place in the movement during the 2000s. There was a process of self-reflection and re-grouping by feminist organizations to develop more appropriate strategies and frames, including the peace frame linked to the concept of women’s human rights.

Some contextual changes also took place, which were relevant and favorable to feminist goals of transforming the family and combating DV (at least until the election of the more conservative President Lee followed by President Park). We discussed the extensive gender equality management system (alternately an opportunity and a challenge) that feminists played a role in developing. We showed that feminist organizations like KWAU and KWH are legitimate political actors with a strong presence in policymaking (as collaborators and as critics). We discussed how, as Korea has sought to improve its international standing and its economic future, policymaking increased its focus on human rights and on improving women’s status and employment. South Korea’s full participation in the CEDAW and the broader UN human rights process has strengthened awareness and understanding of human rights in general and women’s human rights in particular. And problems such as high divorce rates, low fertility rates, and violence against women have generated increasingly widespread public and political concern about the family (B. Kim et al., 2010). Feminists are no longer the only group to call for state intervention to promote a family form better suited to current conditions and to the future of a modern democracy. What remains in question is whether state and feminist goals to transform the Korean family will coincide or be at odds.

We have tried to provide a sense of the persistence and resilience of Korean anti-DV activists as they have evolved and worked to improve their effectiveness in fighting to end DV. The search for a more culturally resonant frame was perhaps more important in the 1990s than in the current period for several reasons. First, in the 2010s the concept of human rights has appeared frequently in the media and in government reports and speeches. This factor and the country’s involvement in UN human rights activities contributed to greater familiarity with and commitment to human rights as a principle; this presents a solid opportunity for feminist activists. Some evidence comes from the immediate and strong public response in defense of the National Commission for Human Rights after President Lee cut funding by 21% in 2009 and tried to politicize the Commission in 2010.²⁸ (It is too soon to know what changes may take place under the new administration of President Park.) Contemporary feminist organizations continue to play an important role in educating legislators and the public on the concept through lobbying and grassroots education. Second, the process of institutionalizing anti-DV services and activities has advanced considerably through implementation of certain aspects of the laws, successive reforms and legal hearings to improve them, production of statistics by multiple agencies (including some charged with implementing the laws), government funding for services, and periodic reports on Korean women’s status, among others.

Feminist activists outside the state, especially KWAU and KWH, remain committed to a long-term process of social change to deconstruct and re-conceptualize the Korean family. They are well-positioned to influence family policy in part because of the legitimacy and recognition accorded to them due to their important role in anti-violence education and service provision. They remain involved in sustained lobbying, coalition building, media and educational campaigns, and participation in international human rights networks and processes. Because of their experiences of the last two decades, Korean feminists now have a much better understanding of the system, its rules, and the cultural dimensions of the country’s evolving political structures and culture. They apply this knowledge in their work. We believe that the Korean experience sheds light on some key contextual and temporal factors that feminists in other settings may confront in their own struggles to advance women’s human rights.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The first author thanks the Department of Women’s Studies and The Ohio State University for their support during dissertation research.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Min Sook Heo is research professor at the Korean Women’s Institute, Ewha Womans University, in South Korea. She received her PhD in Women’s Studies at The Ohio State University in 2008. Her current work focuses on intimate partner violence, battered women’s self-defense, and vernacularization of women’s human rights.

Cathy A. Rakowski is associate professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Rural Sociology at The Ohio State University. Her current research focuses on construction of battered women at a shelter in Central Ohio, women’s rights activism in Venezuela, and gender mainstreaming in Tanzanian agriculture.

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