1.2 Major Women`s organizations in South Korea

There are several Women`s organizations in South Korea. In this paragraph I want to give a short descriptive- normative survey on the major women organization in their agenda. I will concentrate on the activist feminist groups and organizations only in order to narrow the topic.

The first major organization which is connected with the women`s position is YWCA (Young Women Christian Association). This organization has a long and broaden history in many parts of the world. The YWCA was founded in Korea in 1922 with the help of Kim Hwal-lan, Kim Pil-lye and Yoo Kak-kyung, who supported protection of women`s rights and social status, fighting against early marriages and prostitution. YWCA also became a base for the training women as leaders and activists in public areas – it was actual for the period from the end of 1950s and the beginning of 1960s. In 1970s this organization started voluntary activities for the poor areas, it also provided activity for protection of the laborers` rights and developing programs to develop women`s activity.⁷¹

In the 1980s YWCA promoted campaigns for the economic independence – including reducing of debts. The particular activity YWCA promoted after the culmination of the Asian Financial crisis, including fundraising campaigns, food bank program, public work for unemployed women. YWCA was one of the first organizations which initiated the recycling campaign – ANABADA (saving, sharing, bartering and recycling). YWCA, as a Christian organization cares for North Korean refugees, helps them with the adaptation in South Korean society. The organization promoted the fundraising campaign in order to provide milk and clothes for the North Korean children. Moreover, YWCA is also directed towards the constructions of YWCA in North Korea.⁷²

The official program of the YWCA includes the following priorities:

1. Justice with care

South Korean YWCA respects care-services and works in the direction of creating that society in which women will not feel any oppression or discrimination. YWCA fights for guaranteed right for the female labor, expanding a generality in care-service and building system that provides welfare service.⁷³

2. Peace by share

YWCA provides support for the North Korean refugees, especially women and children. YWCA claims, it respects multi-cultural nature of those refugees. The organization also provides campaign for donation for North Korean Women and children, support educational programs for children and adolescents. YWCA also shelters the center supporting help for women that experienced violence and the center for North Korean Refugees.⁷⁴

3. Youth Leadership Development ywca Priority 3. Youth Leadership development

South Korean YWCA supports young women and involve them in the movement, with gender equality perspective. YWCA　of Korea raises young leaders who actively participates civil right movement and women movement with the gender-equality perspective and try to accomplish the society of voluntary social participation of the young and enhancement of citizenship. YWCA also supports building different educational branches: human right education, leadership education. Moreover, YWCA supports social safety and protection of the violated teenagers.⁷⁵

YWCA can be characterized as reformist feminist movement, if we use South Korean context and in general context - as liberal feminist movement with straits of the post-colonial and Marxist feminism. We can see the main issues of the YWCA`s agenda: violence and gender discrimination.

The other major feminist organization in South Korea is Korea Women Association United (KWAU). Established in 1987, KWAU is an umbrella organization consisted of 7 branches and 30 co-organizations. Main aim – achievement of the society with gender equality. KWAU also stands for the reunification of Korea.⁷⁶

KWAU has its roots in the latest 1970s – but unified in 1983, when diverse joint forces decided to unite. It was done after the precedents – female telephonists had to retire after the age of 25. More than that, a big number of women complained of numerous sexual harassments from police officers. A unified, organized force was needed to support women as a part of society - mostly in the legislative way.⁷⁷

KWAU worked in the strong connection with the government and started its work with the quite aggressive politics with the promotion of the gender issues in the society, economy and politics. Working closely with the government, KWAU advocated the idea of providing quota for the National Assembly (50%) and the same quota for hiring civil servants. KWAU also demanded protection of the female labor forces.⁷⁸ The situation after the Asian financial crisis and women`s labor force is following. The problem is, that the situation with the role of Women is not widely discussed. Meanwhile, women comprise about 42% of the whole Korean workforce – and less than 5% of managers are women. This gap in the Korean management seems to be incredible. Women`s economic participation rate was increasing since the 1960, when it was about 26.8%. In 1970 this index increased by 36.5% and in 1980 – by 42.8%.⁷⁹

KWAU is concentrating on the legal work, including lawyers. KWAU positions itself as a primary non-governmental organization that plays critical role in establishing policy reforms and public campaigns for women`s rights – the major achievement is the creation of the Ministry of Gender Equality. KWAU also achieved the emergence of the following acts and laws:

1. Act on the Punishment of Sexual Assault Crimes and Protection of Victims (1993)

2. Special Act for the Punishment of Domestic Violence(1997)

3. Act on the Punishment of Sex Trafficking and Procurement Crimes(2005)

4. Enactment and Revision of Equal Employment Act(1989, 1995, 2001~ ) : Equal Pay for Equal Work, Protection of Maternity Leave for 90 days, Expanding Child-care Leave and also Socialization of Child-care Leave Expenses

5. Actions to Prevent Feminization of Poverty : Enactment of Single Parent Support Act and Economic Self-reliance

6. Revision of Family Law (1989) : Equal Inheritance Rights of Family Property⁸⁰

Korea Women’s HotLine (KWH)

This organization emerged in 1983 and is quite radical. It is radical in many directions. It is, of course, real KWH for South Korean women. According to the official resource of this organization, KWH works against the violence and discrimination, concentrating on the previously tabooed problems for the patriarchal society: sexual violence, physical violence, psychological abuse, trafficking women, prostitution, migrant women problems. KWH supposes itself as bringing violence over women to the official agenda.⁸¹

Since the very emergence, KWH established special shelters for the abused women. The thing is, the organization searched for the financial resource and wanted government to participate. That could play a big role in the understanding of the scale of the problem. The main hindrance in the early KWH`s activity was the following controversy: the need to combine or to separate the violence of husbands from the violence of strangers, whether the wife beating should be included in the whole concept of gender violence. Finally, in the Act on the Punishment of Sexual Assault Crimes and Protection of the Victims (1993) spousal abuse and stranger`s rape were separated.⁸²

A special issue for the organization is dating violence – or dating violence. It includes psychological abuse, sexual and physical violence in order to maintain control over the victim.

What is interesting, the organization uses quite radical rhetoric towards this type of violence: “In reality, dating violence is frequently happen. And even though without self-awareness, we can be a assailant or victim. It is easy to think that the violence between the intimate(or dating) relationship is not real violence. Dating violence is more serious than other violence, because sometimes the violence lasted owing to maintenance of relation after the damage occurrence. It is a serious criminal acts that can lead to rape or murder”.⁸³

We can see that organization gives quite crusty tone in order to tell about a particular type of violence: non-compromising rhetoric that on the one hand shows the naked truth of the violence problem, on the other hand, KWH represents women as victims who a totally blindfolded. In other words, such an image of the organization is two-edged sword. Of course, it is impossible to solve the problem without its recognition. However, non-compromising tone can raise more fear and is not trustworthy among women who already experienced oppression from the males.

KWH considers the fact of sexual violence towards women as break of the human rights, dreaming of an equal and peaceful society. KWH also supports the personal development with the help of the special training system ELF (Empowering, Leadership, Feminism).

KWH operated under patronage the Asia Women`s Network. This organization works on the problem of violence against women. This organization can be called international as it aims at and works in the direction of creation of Organizations for women`s help in Asia:

1. Korea Women`s HotLine

2. National Center against violence (Mongolia)

3. All Japan Shelter Network

4. GABRIEIA (the Phillippinnes)⁸⁴

These are practical activities of the organization in the elimination of violence over women:

1. Advocacy and education in the questions of domestic and sexual violence

2. Cultivation of the activists in the expenditure of the network⁸⁵

The organization understands the differences between the countries in the Asian region, being attentive to the development of the countries. Asia Women`s Network can be called multinational, that has branches in the whole Asia. Speaking about the organization in the South Korean context, the Network is reformist organization and in the wide meaning – liberal feminist organization.

I also want to draw attention to younger feminist organizations in South Korea – KFW and Womenlink. Korea Foundation for Women was established in 1999. It is quite famous for different fund-rising campaigns. For instance, Annual Fundraising Campaign: Hope for Women: 100 Leaders Relay Donation, Grant-making for Woman NGOs’ Activities toward Gender-equal Society and Women’s Welfare Plus Size Fashion Show. We can see, the organization supports development of different women`s initiatives. It also launched Multicultural Society Project for Marriage Migrants and Their Families in order to provide support for those who are not supposed to be protected in the legislative sphere. In 2009 KFW initiated programs for migrant women, including health care support. Although the organization positions itself in a very abstract way (on the official webpage it is written about average for feminists desire of gender equality and welfare) it focuses on sponsorship for women. In different directions: multi-cultural women, women without any social advances, women that need financial support in their activities.⁸⁶

Womenlink is also a young feminist organization in South Korea. This organization also supports different programs especially for women. Officially it also declares itself as the organization for the gender equality and society without any discrimination, sexual violence

This Organization, comparing with the KFW is more productive in the activist forms of movement. Here are some examples of the Womenlink`s activity. For instance, on the 29^th of March, 2017 organization supported the press conference against the violence against women in the cinema. The action directed against the “natural” representation of violence against women One of the feminist activists on the action, Kim Kot Bi said: “Formation of gender equality culture is impossible without urgent institutional reform of the production environment. We do not ignore inequality and discrimination in the film industry, we want to seek for institutional improvement. We hope that hierarchical distinctions, mostly verbal violence, and also physical abuse in which men dominate and any sexist remarks will be removed from the cinema industry”⁸⁷

Womenlink also pays much attention to the political agenda. For instance, it organizes debates on the topic of media activity during Park`s presidency and agitates against THAAD`s deployment in South Korea.

Organization is also active in publishing special presentations for women who experienced violence and some materials on the topic of gender problems, provided in creative way. For instance, the book성평등 복지국가 가이드라인 (Principles of the social welfare of gender equality) is provided in the childish, quite primitive way - but this way is quite simple to understand – simple phrases, less text and more illustrations.⁸⁸

Womenlink also supports several feminist campaigns. For instance, “Energy town” – agitating, as usual, for gender equality and against any forms of discrimination (appearance, sexual, etc.).⁸⁹

We can notice that Womenlink cannot be called purely reformist or radical – this young organization is a mixture of two types, providing activist work, propaganda activity and initiatives in different spheres of social life.

The last feminist organization to pay attention to is KSVRC (Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center). KSVRC was established in 1991 and works in a very narrow direction – sexual violence against women. KSVRC provides special shelter for the victims of sexual violence. The name of the shelter means that it is the open space for all the female victims of sexual violence. Shelter provides diverse help – juridical, medical, psychological. It also provides different educational projects in the sphere of sexual violence. The main aims – help for the victims and broadening of the awareness in this topic. For instance, KSVRC published brochure for children We are the guardians of our bodies (1993) - about sexual and physical abuse. In the other brochure Wonjokyoje: A Manual or Adolescent Sex Education the organization raised a problem of wonjokyoje phenomenon, when young girls date with strangers for money. In 1997 KSVRC organized special camp for teens – in order to educate in sexual violence problem.⁹⁰