Landmark Court Ruling Acknowledges Sexual Assault in Married Life


By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
A Seoul court on Friday sentenced a husband to 30 months in jail for sexually assaulting and raping his wife in a landmark ruling that acknowledged sexual violence in married life.

It is the first time in South Korea that a court has given a guilty verdict to a husband for having sex with his wife against her will since the Constitution was promulgated in 1948.

However, the Seoul Central District Court suspended the sentence for three years because the husband, whose identity has not been released, had expressed regret for his wrongdoings and was drunk when the rape occurred. The couple has ended their marriage.

According to prosecutors, the husband beat and sexually assaulted his wife after tying her hands at their home in September 2002. The husband was angry because his wife was demanding a divorce.

During initial investigations, the husband denied the charges, but later admitted to the crimes after failing a lie detector test.

``Like husbands, wives also have the right to choose whether to have sex or not,’’ Presiding Judge Choi Wan-joo said in the ruling. ``We cannot condone the husband’s actions if he ignored his wife’s decision when they had sex.’’

In a 1970 ruling, the Supreme Court acquitted a husband of charges of raping his wife, saying rape charges cannot be established between a husband and wife.

But over 30 years have passed since the Supreme Court ruling, and South Korea needs to carefully review the changing relationship between husband and wife, the judge said.

Women’s rights groups welcomed yesterday’s ruling, saying the sentence represents a step toward the establishment of more balanced husband-wife relationships in Korea’s male-dominated society.

Lee Mi-kyung, chief of the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center in Seoul, said South Korea should take advantage of the case to punish husbands who sexually assault their wives.

``South Korean husbands usually think they can treat their wife how they like, and a couple’s sex life tends to be unfair,’’ Lee said. ``But nobody wants others to sexually assault them and people’s basic rights need to be protected. In this sense, a husband’s having sex with his wife without her consent should be subject to punishment.’’

The ruling bodes well for a government move to rewrite the laws on sexual assault and harassment aimed at increasing the punishment for those abusing women sexually and better protecting the victims of such crimes.

Yoo Kyung-hee, president of Korean Women Link, said the government should include the concept of rape when defining sex crimes between husband and wife to strictly deal with husbands who sexually abuse their wives.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr