be exempted from obligation. Thirdly, Article 9 of the ‘Act on Special Cases
Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Crimes of Domestic Violence’ defines ‘the
Crime not prosecuted against Objection of the Victim’ and this shifts all the
responsibility of decision making on punishment or non-punishment of assailants
onto the victims under the name of respecting the victims’ wishes.
[8] Responses to Increasing Hatred of Women (List of Issues 10)
33. The issue of hate crimes including misogyny became a national issue after the
killing of a woman near Gangnam Station in May 2016. Following this incident,
the
NHRCK
conducted
a
‘Fact-Finding
Survey
on
Hate
Speech
and
Countermeasures’ in 2016 and the National Assembly also made legislative
efforts including the establishment of an anti-discrimination law to respond to
hate crimes, although no legislation has been enacted. Currently, the only law
that regulates hate speech is the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination against
Persons with Disabilities, Remedy against Infringement of their Rights, etc.
(Article 32 (Prevention of Harassment)).
34. According to the above-mentioned fact-finding survey by the NHRCK, all
respondents (about 1,000 people) including women, persons in sexual minority
groups, disabled persons and migrants felt fear of hatred, were concerned that
they might be the target of hate crime, and even concealed their identity in
some cases, and over half of the respondents said that they did not know how
to deal with both online and offline hatred.
<Table 7> Fear of Hatred
(Unit: %)
Groups/Levels of
To a certain
Not at all
Not much
16.8
19.2
49.0
14.9
4.7
10.5
52.2
32.5
Disabled persons
8.0
21.5
45.5
25.0
Migrants
27.0
20.6
33.3
19.0
Fear
Women
Sexual minority
groups
degree
Very much