Protecting victims of bullying: The historical, legislative and social context in South Korea

Abstract

In the last decades the Republic of Korea has become a world’s economic power, however it still struggles in many social areas, such as gender equality, sexual identity recognition and the protection of victims of bullying. The main objective of this thesis is analysing the lack of specific laws aimed at protecting victims of bullying behaviours and persecuting the aggressors, also taking into account the historical background of the country. The first part of this paper will focus on the historical and philosophical framework of South Korea, the influence Confucianist beliefs exert on the contemporary Korean society and the relation between Confucianism and bullying. The second chapter is dedicated to the laws and regulations South Korea has adopted to tackle the bullying issue. Both national legislations and various international organisations’ regulations will be studied, paying attention to the terminology used when talking about violent behaviours. The third and fourth chapters consist of two types of bullying that recently have made the news. The former examines the spread of cyberbullying resulting in multiple suicides of public figures and the creation of group chats sharing illegal sexual content. The latter focuses on the severity of bullying against school teachers. Taking into account the reactions of the public opinion, the thesis will analyse which implementations have been proposed to deal with the problem of bullying inside Korean society and how the government responded.