Women's groups welcome potential introduction of consent-based law on rape, but controversies remain over revision
Gyeonggi Province Governor Kim Dong-yeon recently vowed that he will push to redefine the crime of rape if he wins the upcoming presidential election, changing the law to state that sexual intercourse without consent should constitute rape instead of the current definition of "by means of violence or intimidation."
Kim, a candidate in the Democratic Party of Korea's primary for the June 3 presidential election, announced campaign pledges last week related to a "safe and fair society for women." Along with establishing a presidential gender equality committee and overhauling the portfolio of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, he vowed to revise Article 297 of the Criminal Act, which concerns the crime of rape.
"Rape as defined in Article 297 of the Criminal Act applies when someone has raped a person via threats or violence. This makes it hard to punish those who commit rape by exerting their authority but without the use of threats or violence, or when sexual crimes are committed through psychological domination (of the victim), such as grooming," Kim said in an interview with the Women's News newspaper.
He also pledged a legal revision that would mete out stern punishments for dating violence.
Should rape laws be consent or coercion-based?
Whether to legally define rape based on consent instead of threats or violence is an ongoing discussion in South Korea. Multiple countries across the world and over a dozen states in the US have legal clauses against sexual violence based on the standard of consent or have adopted both approaches -- consent and coercion.
The Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center, a group that has been strongly pushing for a consent-based framework on sexual violence, pointed out that 153 of its 218 consultations with rape victims in 2024 said they suffered abuse without explicit violence or threats. "The majority of the consultations related to rape involved cases that cannot be recognized as accompanied by threats or violence ... In order to protect the victims, the crime of rape should be defined based on lack of consent," the group said.
South Korea's coercion-based legal definition of rape, in principle, stipulates the existence of violence or threats of violence.
While consent-based sexual violence laws are still less widespread globally, there have been several efforts since 2016 to adopt the framework, led by members of the National Assembly in both the conservative and liberal blocs -- although all three versions of such a revision proposed during the National Assembly term from 2020 to 2024 were made by the liberal parties.
Rep. Jeong Hye-kyung of the progressive Justice Party last month proposed revising the Criminal Act to adopt a consent-based statute on sexual violence. "The idea that nonconsensual (sexual intercourse) is rape is quite obvious, but now this is what Korean women are demanding. They are asking why there is not yet a law addressing this matter," Jeong said in a press conference on March 5 at the National Assembly, explaining why she proposed the revision.
Earlier this year, two petitions demanding that the rape law be consent-based garnered over 50,000 signatures in the online public petition system run by parliament, and were forwarded to a parliamentary committee for review.
The Democratic Party, the largest party in the National Assembly, considered a consent-based rape law as a possible campaign pledge in the parliamentary elections in April of last year, but it was ultimately scrapped.
Lee Jae-myung, the frontrunner in the presidential race in terms of approval ratings, has not made significant mention of gender equality issues in his platform so far. Lee claimed a landslide win in his party's primary for the Chungcheong Provinces on Saturday with 88.15 percent of the vote.
Would consent-based law be passed by new administration?
Kim, the only major candidate to include a rape law revision among his campaign pledges, won only 7.54 percent of the vote on Saturday, and has been far behind Lee in terms of approval ratings. With Kim's chances of winning considered slim, the prospect of the next administration revising the rape law to a consent-based framework does not seem very likely as of now.
A Gallup Korea poll announced last week showed Lee in a commanding lead with 38 percent support, followed by the conservative former mayor of Daegu Hong Joon-pyo, former labor minister Kim Moon-soo and Prime Minister Han Duck-soo each at 7 percent. Hong stated on March 3 that he is against adopting a consent-based rape law, and neither of the aforementioned conservative politicians has yet commented on the issue.
The person who asked for Hong's opinion on the matter online had said that adopting a consent-based rape law would lead to a spike in false accusations, with young men accused of rape despite having engaged in sexual intercourse with their partner's consent.
Fear of false accusations has been the main concern among the opponents of the revision, with some legal experts pointing out that it is difficult to prove consent after an act of sexual intercourse. Lawyer Ahn Yeong-rim, specializing in criminal law, told a local media outlet that questions of consent will lead to disputes.
"It is premature to enact (a consent-based rape law) when there is no measure to prevent false accusations," she was quoted as saying.
Government agencies, including the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, do not provide a tally of false accusations specifically related to sex crimes.
The conservative administration of ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol shot down attempts to legislate a consent-based rape law. In January 2023, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said it would work with the Ministry of Justice to get such a law passed, but the Justice Ministry denied this claim just hours later by saying it had actually meant to suggest "careful consideration with the intent of opposing (such a law)."
Rep. Kweon Seong-dong of Yoon's People Power Party publicly opposed the idea at the time, saying it would be impossible to prove consent. He claimed that the proposal amounted to "disparaging adults as immature, unable even to say yes or no to sexual intercourse."
Kweon again voiced his opposition last year, and claimed that the proposed consent-based rape law was the Democratic Party's attempt to spark gender-based conflict. Political tensions in Korean society related to gender have been growing, with a 2024 survey by Hankook Research showing that 64 percent of respondents said it was a serious issue.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
