Outrage is spreading over the case of a migrant woman who married a South Korean man and was stabbed and beaten by her husband just eight days after arriving in the country.
The Korea Migration Women's Human Rights Center submitted 1,500 citizen petition letters to the Seongnam Branch of Suwon District Court on May 29, calling for a severe sentence against the husband who attacked the Southeast Asian woman, identified only as A.
A arrived in South Korea earlier this year and was severely injured by her husband just eight days after her arrival. He repeatedly struck her head with a bladed weapon found in the home, and when it broke, he retrieved another and continued the assault.
A suffered fractures to all of her fingers while trying to fend off the attack. She was treated in an intensive care unit immediately after the incident and remains hospitalized. She later said she had been gripped by such overwhelming terror that she thought she might die on the spot.
The husband was found to have a history of multiple prior incidents of violence.
The center said the attack was a serious act of violence rooted in a structural problem: marriage migrant women have no choice but to depend entirely on their Korean spouses for their residency status and daily lives.
Marriage migrant women cannot easily apply for alien registration without the cooperation of their Korean spouse. Because A was attacked so soon after arriving, she had not yet registered as a foreign resident or enrolled in national health insurance, leaving her struggling to cover medical costs and basic living expenses.
The petition letters stated that the attack "was not an impulsive crime but a serious offense that occurred against a backdrop of the defendant's repeated violent tendencies," adding that the perpetrator "has been shifting blame onto the victim while appealing only for leniency."
The petitions urged the court to "give full weight to the gravity of the offense, the victim's desperate circumstances, and the defendant's unrepentant attitude, and hand down a fitting and severe punishment."
betterj@heraldcorp.com
