The Report on Human Rights Situation in the Republic of Korea
the sports human rights protection system’ on Feb. 24, 2021. This plan includes
comprehensively managing the disciplinary action information of school athletes,
obtaining the school records when selecting new professional athletes and
restricting the athletes with disciplinary action for school violence from being
selected to be on the national team, etc. Moreover, the Ministry of Education and
each office of education conducted a survey on experiencing violence with the
student athletes.
In Apr. 2021, the Korea Worker’s Compensation & Welfare Service approved the
worker’s compensation for an athlete, Choi Suk-hyeon, who committed suicide
after enduring years of abuse by the coaching staff. This is the first approval of
worker’s compensation in the case of the workplace harassment of an athlete.
Also, the supreme court sentenced a ex-short track coach to 13-year imprisonment
for violence and sexual violence in Dec. 2021.31)
B) Realities of the ‘Violent Control’ Culture
This controversy of violence within the sports community shows that many of
Korea’s best athletes may be the perpetrators of human rights violations for quite
some time, and that many of the victims showed themselves in the process. The
perpetrators are first responsible for these actions, but there were many
discussions on the cause of these human rights violations in the sports community.
The causes are generally believed to be the cultural evil of performance supremacy,
the closed structure of adapting to violence and soft punishments, etc.
31) Supreme Court, Dec. 10, 2021. Sentencing 2021Do12998 Judgment
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