Backlash or victims? ‘Victimised Korean husbands’ of migrant wives and problematic norms on sexual relations in South Korea

Bibliographic Data

ID15748847
AuthorsSohoon Yi (0000-0003-0452-9246, Korea University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume9
Issue2
Pages273-290
Publication date2024-10-09
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Gender-Based Violence (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2398-6808 • E-ISSN: 2398-6816
PublisherPolicy Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1332/23986808y2024d000000049
OpenAlexW4403260549
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited28

Violence against marriage migrants became a critical social issue in South Korea in the late 2000s, and the government instituted various measures in response, partially adopting civil society organisations’ demands to protect migrant women. However, men’s rights groups also mobilised shortly after to advocate for the rights of citizen-husbands under the slogan of ‘male victims of international marriages’. Their campaigns targeted both the unscrupulous commercial matchmakers and their deceitful migrant wives. This article situates the victimised men discourse as a backlash against violence against women campaigns to reverse policy gains in the protection of women’s rights. The article argues that government policies have legitimised such discourse and used flawed ‘data’ to justify their policies. This article uses as data complaints submitted to the Korea Consumer Agency, a government regulator for consumer disputes, about international marriages and focuses on their mentioning of sexual relations, intimacy and sexuality. By doing so, this article demonstrates that men’s rights as consumers of marriage brokerage services are behind their claims of victimhood, and the victimhood discourse undermines the safety and human rights of migrant women. Moreover, a close look at the database about ‘male victimhood’ reveals severe human rights violations against migrant women

Backlash · Criminology · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Migrant workers · Political science · Sociology · Engineering · Gender Studies · Psychology · Sex work and related issues · Social Psychology

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