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| Kim Soo-jung, partner at Jihyang Law, at her office in Seocho, southern Seoul, Wednesday / Korea Times photo by Lee Suh-yoon |
Lawyer who helped overturn South Korea's abortion ban says change is too slow
By Lee Suh-yoon
For Kim Soo-jung, a 49-year-old partner at Jihyang Law, it was only natural that her legal career would often put her in front of the judge in defense of women.
"As long as I can remember, women were always a socially disadvantaged group in Korea," Kim said in an interview at her office in Seocho, southern Seoul, Wednesday. "Being a female lawyer, it was just something I had to do."
After passing the bar exam, Kim joined a legal team that was pushing to abolish the country's patriarchal family registry system, or "hojuje," while still at the two-year judicial training institute. Kim and her team eventually won the case at the Constitutional Court in 2004. From there, it was a natural transition to other gender issues that remain unsolved in the legal realm.
The most prominent case Kim represented recently was the landmark Constitutional Court ruling against the country's abortion ban in April. Kim and a group of female lawyers at Lawyers for a Democratic Society ― representing an ob-gyn doctor in Gwangju who was criminally charged for carrying out abortions ― argued the 66-year-old abortion ban acted as a tool of oppression, citing real-life examples of how the ban exposed women to overpriced and dangerous medical procedures as well as blackmail from ill-wishing partners.
"The activists said we were going to win but we lawyers weren't so sure because we had been back-stabbed too many times. I prepared two different press statements that day," Kim said with a smile. "The legal team was not the only player behind the court victory. It was a joint effort with perfect coordination from the civic society and ob-gyn doctor's associations. The momentum really boiled up to the peak on the day of the ruling. Hell would have broken loose if they didn't overturn the ban this time."
Apart from these courtroom battles, Kim is also the special standing advisor at the National Human Rights Commission of Korea and Korean Women's Hotline, an NGO that helps women subject to domestic abuse or sexual violence.
At the moment, she is helping a man in his 30s ― a Korean adoptee who was recently kicked out of the U.S. because his abusive adoptive parents did not register his adoption papers ― sue the Korean government for evading its responsibility to properly oversee overseas adoption processes and ensure adoptees' rights.
As important as Kim's pro bono work is, it has to be juggled with her day-to-day work at the law firm as well as parenting duties for her two daughters.
"Despite all my work for minors' rights in court, I can't find enough time to care for my own children," she said, taking a break to take an urgent call from her 10-year-old daughter looking for her new classroom. "Still they were proud of me on that abortion ruling."
Kim has also been a part of the legal aid team at Korean Women Migrants Human Rights Center for 10 years now. The widely shared video this month of a Vietnamese migrant wife being beaten by her Korean husband affirmed her deep misgivings on how most international marriages are set up in Korea.
"It's a very uneven playing field from the beginning: a much-younger bride who is bought from a poorer nation and brought to a country that is oppressive of women to start with ― it's hard to expect they will be treated as an equal partners," Kim said. "The women are vulnerable and unprepared for what's in store: being treated as a childbirth vessel to continue the family lineage or a house servant."
Many women Kim interviewed at the center held back from leaving an oppressive marriage for years, wanting to settle down or not be separated from their child in Korea. Even with evidence, the immigration office or court often sides with the husband to frame them as someone who just came to Korea to earn more money, Kim says.
The government, too, is responsible for allowing so many international marriages to take place under such skewed expectations and conditions.
"Instead of solving the problem of too many unwed bachelors in the countryside by improving living infrastructure there and other things, they chose the zero-cost policy of just letting the bachelors go buy their brides overseas," Kim said.
Even in the case of Korean women, Kim finds little has changed in qualitative terms ― not to mention Korea's stubborn glass ceiling and high rate of sexual and domestic violence. The cases she witnesses on the frontlines are still too many and too tragic, with new forms of gender violence like digital voyeurism on the rise.
Last year, a woman Kim was helping divorce her abusive husband was killed by her new boyfriend as the two-year divorce suit was coming to a close. The ex-husband visited Kim and another lawyer to genuinely thank them for finding a previously unknown piece of property inherited to the woman's name while organizing the assets for the divorce. He showed no signs of condolences for his ex-wife.
"It was tragic," Kim said. "Not just her death but the way her life was treated even after she died."
