On July 10, 2007, the government of South Korea made new strides in establishing and protecting the legal and human rights of soldiers serving in the Korean military by approving a bill that bans physical, verbal, or sexual abuse among soldiers. Moreover, under the new bill, a soldier cannot give orders to another soldier unless specifically authorized by a commander. 

Since the end of the Korean War (1950-53), a conscription law has constitutionally mandated that all able-bodied South Korean men fulfill military service. Over five decades, this law has affected the lives of nearly every South Korean man and his family. Today, the South Korean army, which is the largest component of the military, boasts nearly 680,000 troops. Every year, approximately 250,000 young men between the ages of 20-30 enter the military to fulfill their civic duty. At present, the South Korean constitution does not legally recognize conscientious objection, and those who refuse military service are punished, usually via imprisonment. 

Anti-Communist ideology drilled deep into the national psyche and nearly twenty years of rule by military leaders (1960-1988) have helped to sustain and glorify the military’s importance in society, as a milestone to manhood and as a standard of citizenship. As a result, through much of modern South Korean history, the military was largely cushioned from public scrutiny, resulting in decades of abuse and inhumane treatment among military personnel. 

During the 1980s, South Korea underwent a process of democratization that culminated in the first popular elections in 1987 and the election of the first civilian president in more than thirty years, Kim Young-sam, in 1993. Since then, the South Korean public has vocally deplored the human rights violations taking place within the military. Consequently, living conditions in the barracks have improved immensely as well as overall lifestyle, as freedoms such as internet and phone privileges have expanded. In addition, the service period was shortened from three years to twenty-two months and there are now greater alternatives to fulfilling the mandatory service (e.g. employment in defense contracting companies) for those who have the means to do so.

Nevertheless, the Korean army and the military in general remains a highly hierarchic and masculinized institution. Hierarchies structured by Confucian values coupled with the strict norms of military conduct magnify the import and sway of superior officers, whose orders and mere whims cannot be disobeyed. Furthermore, group pressure to conform has ensured that many abuses and excessive acts of violence go unreported. As such, human rights abuses, mainly in the form of extreme hazing, continue to take place. The hazing has included such heinous acts as the forced eating of human feces as a “disciplinary measure.” In 2004, the Human Rights’ Commission of Korea released a shocking report that revealed that more than 15% of respondents interviewed in the study had experienced some form of sexual violence  while serving in the military. In the summer of 2005, a conscripted soldier who had endured months of hazing opened fire on his peers, killing eight and shocking the nation with grief and horror. 

Despite the incumbent government’s recent moves to improve the image of the military, reforms have been slow to materialize given the clout of conservative military leaders and more importantly, society’s polarization over how to reform the military. Any moves that appear to weaken the military prompt concerns over declining military discipline and morale, a worry that is seemingly justified by heightened fears over security and the ability to defend the nation from a belligerent North Korea. 

It is questionable how much impact the most recent bill to improve soldier’s rights would actually have. For one, the bill fails to effectively protect abuses of power by superior officers, the most predominant conduit for inflicting violence and abuses on other soldiers. More crucially, clearer parameters for defining abuse are needed. In the absence of lucid definitions of what constitutes an abuse as opposed to discipline, it will remain difficult to prevent continued human rights’ violations in the South Korean military.

References:

Sung-ki Jung. “Army Captain Arrested After Forcing Trainees to Eat Feces,” (21 January 2005). Korea Times. Retrieved on July, 12 2007 from http://search.hankooki.com/times/times_view.php?terms=feces+code%3A+kt&path=hankooki3%2Ftimes%2Flpage%2F200501%2 Fkt2005012121164853460.htm&kw=feces/.

Insook Kwon. The ROK is the Military (Translated from Korean). Paju city, South Korea: Chunyunsa Press, 2005.

Jae-yeon Shin. “Prohibition of physical beating and verbal abuse in the military by law,” (10 July 2007). Hankook Ilbo. Retrieved on July 12, 2007 from http://news.hankooki.com/lpage/society/200707/h2007071023502422080.htm.

“8 South Korean soldiers killed in shooting rampage,” (19 June 2005). Japan Today. Retrieved on July 12, 2007 from http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/340820.

“Bill on solders’ rights approved,” (11 July 2007). Joongang Ilbo. Retrieved on July 12, 2007 from http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2877892.

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