Seoul, Korea
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A South Korean court overturned the 60-year-old conviction of an elderly woman imprisoned as a teenager for biting the tongue of a suspected sexual assault, ending a long battle for justice that attracted support from women around the country.
Choi Marja, now 79, claims he was sexually assaulted in 1964 as an 18-year-old, by a man seeking direction in a coastal city in Busan.
She only escaped by biting the 1.5cm (0.6 inch) man’s tongue, urging her to sue her for terrible physical harm. She countered him for attempted rape, trespassing and threats.
However, this was in Korea in the 1960s. It is a deeply patriarchal society focused on the devastation of the Korean War and the reconstruction from the brutal occupation of Japan before it. Women are expected to fully support men and domestic violence is so common that there was no word at the time.
The outcome: Choi was sentenced to 10 months in prison and two years in probation. This is the punishment for an invader who was sentenced to six months in prison and an attacker who was sentenced to one year of probation for trespassing and threats. The prosecutor has stopped attempting rape.
But as decades passed, women’s rights campaigns, including the #MeToo movement, sparked Choi’s resolve to overturn her beliefs, even if justice finally came to her as an older woman.
She has been fighting for this since 2020, and the Supreme Court ultimately ordered a retrial in Busan Regional Court.
The court held that there was no evidence from the prosecutor’s office that the man had been permanently disabled from a tongue injury.
It pointed to medical records showing that he had undergone surgery for his tongue, passed military fitness exams and served in the military. One witness testified that his speech had returned to normal levels within a year.
The court also found Choi’s actions to be one of self-defense “to protect himself from illegal attacks.”
The ruling was filled with congratulations and joys from Choi and her many supporters gathered outside the court. A video from CNN affiliate JTBC shows the crowd holding the sign and handed him a choi bouquet of flower-haired hair and said, “Choi Mal-Ja did it!”
“People warned me, but they couldn’t fill this incident by saying it was like hitting an egg on a rock.”
Her lawyer is currently planning to file a damages lawsuit against the South Korean government, JTBC reported.
Choi’s original trial reflects the number of obstacles women faced in obtaining justice back then.
Choi claims that her rights were violated during the investigation and trial process, during which time she and her supporters were handcuffed and later made to take a test to prove her virginity.
According to Choi’s testimony, the prosecutor and judge asked whether they would marry the invader during the investigation and trial to conclude the case.
The theory that he became his wife may compensate for his injuries, as other women do not want to marry a man with half tongues.
Wang My-Yang, president of the Korean Women’s Bar Association, said the original 1965 ruling reflected “social bias and distorted views on victims of sexual violence deeply rooted in our society.”
“I think the social atmosphere at the time was probably because the prosecutor was with the man, so the concept of sexual violence probably didn’t exist,” Wang told CNN in an interview earlier this year.
However, the anti-sexual violence movement flourished in the 1990s and even included a campaign for the justice of “women of comfort,” an e-music expression for victims of sexual slavery enacted by the Japanese military in South Korea during World War II and even WWII.
The global #MeToo movement took hold in Korea properly in 2018, explaining powerful men and urged the government to enforce harsh punishments for crimes of sexual violence.
It was these changing attitudes that Choi Mal-Ja wanted to seek a retrial.
“The life of a girl who couldn’t even blossom has been forever unfair and resentful… The country must compensate for my human rights,” Choi wrote in a letter to the Supreme Court last year.
