No tolerance on violence

Foreign wives need protection against domestic abuse

A video clip of a Korean husband assaulting his Vietnamese wife in the presence of their two-year-old son is arousing public outrage. It should serve as a warning against domestic violence in multiracial families.

The shocking footage of the man punching and kicking his foreign wife for three hours Thursday at their home in Yeongam, South Jolla Province, went viral. He wielded brutal violence just because she did not speak Korean well. The incident was made public after her friend reported the case to police the following day and footage was put online.

Domestic violence, especially against foreign women who have moved to South Korea after marrying Korean men, has emerged as a serious social problem that should be solved as soon as possible. A 2018 report by the National Human Rights Commission showed that four in 10 marriage migrant women became victims of domestic abuse mostly by their Korean husbands. Nineteen foreign spouses have been murdered over the past 10 years.

The number of foreign women marrying Korean men has risen steadily with interracial weddings accounting for 7 percent to 11 percent of all marriages each year over the past decade. They are mostly from Vietnam, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries, and Uzbekistan.

It is a national shame that such foreign wives are not properly protected as legal immigrants, who have no one but their husbands and in-laws to rely on in this society of increasing multiracial families.

The number of foreigners residing in South Korea is around 2.3 million at present. The nation will need more foreign workers year by year due to the nose-diving birthrate, the lowest in the world, and the country's aging population. The number of marriage immigrant women will likely rise further amid increasing interracial marriages.

It is our responsibility to embrace and treat foreign spouses as members of our society. There should be no tolerance for domestic violence in "multinational" families.