Even though South Korea is protesting against hidden spy-cams pornography, the country has
another upraising problem. The issue is nothing other than "dating violence". It's the 21st century, even though we are more educated and advanced with the high-end technology, we are still facing such tragic events.
Dating violence is defined as any kind of psychological, physical, verbal or sexual violence between couples.
Over the period, dating violence has significantly increased and now, most of the victims are men.
According to the National Police Agency, the number of women's violence report saw 30 percent peak rise. In 2016, it was 6,702 but in 2017 the numbers were 8,702. Also, not to exclude the fact, the male victims also doubled in the same period from 458 to 977.
Dating violence claims around eight lives every month. Last year, over 10,000 people were arrested for cases against dating violence.
In 2017, more than 7,500 cases of battery and injury were reported, includes 67 murders and attempted murders. However, the punishment rate is very low as only three percent people faced jail in the first quarter of 2017.
In the first half of this year, 4,427 women and 650 men have become victims of dating violence. If the situation persists, the number of men victims will trump more than 1,000 by this year's end. Experts also speculate that a number of male victims are more but most of them are ashamed to come forward.
Chung Suk-hun, who is a professor of criminal psychology at Soonchunhyang University, said: "The increase in the number of male victims of dating violence means in a sense that women with more education on sexual equality are now actively resisting verbal attacks from their boyfriends." He also added that"But women should not use violence either. We need education and counselling because this can lead to domestic violence."
Unlike the United States or the United Kingdom, South Korea doesn't have strict punishment for dating violence. Park Mi-rang, a professor of police administration at Hannam University, believes mandatory measures should be included so that one can differentiate between perpetrators and victims. She also stated, "Instead of just punishing perpetrators, efforts to correct problematic behaviour need to be pursued as a country."
