Tag: sexual harassment

Considering in the past rapists would go free because victims did not resist enough, the fact this teacher received six years is surprising:

A high school teacher has been jailed for six years for sexually harassing a female student multiple times.

The Daegu High Court’s ruling on Sunday did not change the lower court sentence of the man, who is in his 50s, on charges of infringing laws on sexually protecting adolescents and teenagers.

The court heard that at about 7:20 p.m. last September the man called the student, who had recently broken up with her boyfriend, to a teachers’ office, saying he had advice on the matter.

The teacher asked her to take off her clothes, saying he would “personally check if she had had illicit experience with her boyfriend.”

The man told the girl to do this four times in one month, calling her to isolated places in the school.

The court said the victim “suffered extreme mental distress and embarrassment, which may disrupt her sexual security or socio-interactive understanding to be formed in future.”

However, the court took into account the man’s clean criminal record and the fact that he had admitted the offenses.  [Korea Times]

This guy sounds creepy if the accusations are true:

A native English teacher at a high school in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, is under investigation for allegedly sexually harassing the female students, according to Heungdeok Police Station Thursday.

The teacher, whose identity is unknown, is accused of hugging the girls as a lesson in “foreign greeting.”

The school has suspended the teacher from teaching.

The students told police the teacher sexually harassed them verbally and physically.

The teacher denies the accusations, saying they are the result of misunderstanding cultural differences.  [Korea Times]

Here is a power tip for everyone, don’t be giving unwanted hugs or having sexual conversations with high school students especially if you are a teacher.

It looks like another idiot had too much to drink on a flight bound for South Korea:

A non-Korean man was turned over to the police and faces criminal prosecution in the U.S. after sexually harassing a stewardess on Korean Air flight KE036, according to the airline Thursday.

The man in his 50s, whose identity remains unknown, allegedly sexually harassed the stewardess on the flight from Atlanta to Incheon on Tuesday.

The man, who was wearing a wet shirt at the time of the incident, asked the stewardess if she wanted him to take off his shirt when asked if he needed a towel.

He also allegedly demanded that the stewardess sit next to him, drink wine with him and give him a massage so he could sleep better.

When the stewardess warned the man, he allegedly started to make threats, saying the airline should fire her.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This has to be one of the weakest sexual harassment claims I have seen yet:

Rep. Han Sun-kyo has become the target of opposition criticism after making what female lawmakers claimed was a “sexually harassing” remark to Rep. Yoo Eun-hye during National Assembly audit sessions on Thursday.

Han, a ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker, was addressing sessions held to question the Education, Culture and Tourism Committee, of which he is a member. As he mentioned the rising controversies of the Mir and K-Sports foundations, he caught some of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) lawmakers, including Yoo, laughing.

Apparently angered, Han, a former MBC news reader, asked Yoo, “What is so funny? Do you find me attractive or something?”

Yoo, offended by the comment, demanded Han apologize. MPK’s poet-turned-lawmaker Do Jong-hwan and Park Kyung-mi joined Yoo in criticizing Han.

Han apologized, saying he and Yoo are from the same alumni circle.

“I guess I might have lost grip since I perceived her as my colleague,” Han said during the audit’s follow-up session in the afternoon. “If she is still uncomfortable about what I said, I will make further apologies.”

Yoo was not moved by his apology.

“Before I am your colleague, I am a lawmaker representing my citizens and we are in the middle of an Assembly audit session,” Yoo said. “Your comment embarrassed me and neither is it appropriate to the committee.” [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I find it ironic these opposition lawmakers are claiming that Han’s comment was inappropriate during a committee meeting when they were the ones giggling and disturbing the meeting in the first place.

Another example of someone using their position of authority to take advantage of young people:

Pastor Lee Dong-hyun, head of popular Christian teenage evangelical community “Rise Up Movement,” has admitted sexually molesting a female follower for years.

Lee, 48, harassed the high school girl ― who was 17 ― from 2005 until 2008, consistently demanding her to have sex with him, according to NewsNJoy, an online news outlet, Tuesday. When the victim refused, he threatened her, saying: “Your life will be ruined once our relationship is known among Korean society” and “How will you manage to get married after you had sex with me?” the report said, citing the victim, now 28.

NewsNJoy said Lee preferred female followers as his aides and when he took a small group of teenagers to Europe, he often slept in the girls’ room.

With the scandal becoming viral, Lee said on the “Rise Up Movement” web page Tuesday he will no longer chair the group. The site said the community will cancel a mass Christian gathering planned for Aug 7. The group, established in 1999, has been holding an annual mass gathering at Seoul Plaza, drawing about 30,000 teenagers and parents.

“I committed a mistake when I was still a neophyte as a Christian leader,” Lee said, according to Hankook Ilbo. “I admit the whole wrongdoing. I am sorry to all the students who followed my leadership.” [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but this has nothing to do with being a neophyte as a Christian leader.  This guy knew exactly what he was doing just like policeman, school teachers, military leaders, etc. that have been caught before doing the same thing.

It appears that South Korea is getting serious about stopping sexual harassment in the school system:

Suwon District Court has sentenced a high school teacher in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, to six years’ jail for sexually harassing and blackmailing a student.

The teacher, identified as Kim, 38, was also ordered to spend 80 hours at a class for sexual offenders and to have his personal information disclosed for six years.

Kim forced his student, 19, identified only as “A,” to take off her clothes and had sexually harassed her 43 times from August to October last year. He also filmed body parts to blackmail her, police said.

Kim approached the student, offering free personal tutoring, because “A” could not afford private lessons. “A” was preparing for a civil service examination.

The court said it handed down a heavy sentence because Kim forgot his duty as a teacher and treated his student as a sex object.

But the court took into consideration that Kim admitted guilt and had paid 30 million won to the student. [Korea Times]

It looks like a lot of Korean women are willing to put up with sexual harassment for various reasons:

Nearly half of women tend not to raise the alarm when they are subjected to sexual harassment because they fear the consequences, a survey suggests.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea polled 450 working women and 350 female university students.

Some 40.2 percent of respondents said they would not raise the issue when they are sexually harassed. Fear of the complaints rebounding on their own reputation was the biggest reason with 20.8 percent of the group, and fear of a negative impact on their career came second with 14.4 percent.

Fear of more emotional distress came in third with 13.8 percent, while 10.2 percent said they would find the prospect of having to face the aggressor too difficult.  [Chosun Ilbo]

If at your next SHARP training session you get taught that it is not okay for you to go to spouses in your unit and kiss them on the lips this is why:

As Congress wrangled with the growing clamor over sexual misconduct in the military in 2013, a Fort Bragg commander made it a practice to give the wives of subordinates unwelcome kisses on the lips at public events.

After an anonymous letter was sent to the commander’s superiors, a subsequent investigation led to his removal from his job. But he stayed in the military and was allowed to quietly retire in April 2015 – more than two years after the initial complaint about his conduct.

An Army investigation – triggered by an anonymous letter to Lt. Gen. Daniel Allyn, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at the time – reveals that Col. Chad McRee, former commander of the 16th Military Police Brigade, violated five of eight core expectations for Army leaders, made inappropriate remarks toward officers and noncommissioned officers and was unfairly authoritative toward Family Readiness Group members, officers and noncommissioned officers. [Fayetteville Observer]

You have to read the whole thing at the link to appreciate how outrageous this Colonel and his wife’s behavior was in regards to spouses in their unit.

This is the first time I have ever heard of a woman in Korea coming up on sexual harassment charges:

Park Hyun-jung, president and CEO of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, is under fire over allegations that she sexually harassed employees, verbally assaulted them and abused her power in hiring and promotion decisions.

Insiders of the Seoul-government funded orchestra say Park tried to touch a male employee’s genital area in October last year by pulling him by his necktie at a public dinner gathering after drinking an excessive amount of alcohol.

“From the look of you, I think you will do well as a (bar) hostess,” she was also quoted as saying to a female employee during a meeting.

A petition filed against her reveals that Park told two other female employees at the meeting that they should serve important guests by sitting next to them and doing the duty of bar girls.  [Korea Observer]

You can read more at the link, but Park has been on the job for almost two years and was the first woman appointed to lead the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra despite having no musical or orchestra experience in the past.

Here is the latest sexual assault / harassment story making headlines:

Katie Rapp was surprised when she was told to go to a Perkins restaurant outside Cincinnati to discuss the investigation into her claims of sexual harassment.

Rapp, a member of the Ohio National Guard, sat in a corner booth trying to fend off a panic attack as she described her experience in Afghanistan. A Beyoncé song blasted in the background.

“Everything I went through in [the] country was hard. It really sucked,” Rapp told BuzzFeed News. “But my investigation was the hardest four hours of my life.”

It’s been over two years since Rapp was sent home from Afghanistan and 19 months since her investigation interview in March 2013. In about 30 days she will learn if she will get her wish to receive an honorable medical discharge from the military, or be required to stay until her contract ends in 2018. She had been distracting herself from thinking about the case by attending classes in biochemistry at the University of Cincinnati, but has since taken some time off due to the medical board evaluation process.

Rapp’s case was assigned to Lt. Col. Lisa Gammon. The National Guard and Gammon would not comment on how many previous military sexual assault cases Gammon had investigated, but, according to her LinkedIn profile, she had been working with the Ohio National Guard since 2008.

Rapp had already become disillusioned with the National Guard by the time she met with Gammon. Rapp claims that she was repeatedly sexually harassed by men on her unit, both while deployed in Afghanistan and also during basic training in South Carolina. She said that after reporting the incidents, her captain transferred her to a different platoon, rather than punishing her alleged harassers. She was sent to a mandatory psychological evaluation, diagnosed with an “adjustment disorder,” and sent home.

“I learned that nobody believes you unless you can prove it,” said Rapp. So she decided to record her interview with Gammon, just in case the meeting didn’t go well.

In her words, “It was four straight hours of victim-blaming.” (Buzzfeed)

You can read the rest at the link.

It will be interesting to see if she gets the discharge she wants due to claiming to have PTSD for sexual harassment. Instead of discharging her they should first conduct a more professional investigation then what was reported in this article.

Considering the cover ups of such cases uncovered in the Alaska National Guard this makes me wonder if the Guard has got the memo that all sexual harassment and assault cases will be thoroughly investigated?