Exposing Dongguk University: Racialized Sexual Violence, Institutional Betrayal, and Alleged Public Funds Fraud (2016–2025)

Exporting Sexual Violence: How Korea Uses Hallyu as a Smokescreen for International Sex Trafficking (updated 11:55 PM UTC, Sunday, June 8, 2025)

The UN Definition: Understanding Sex Trafficking in the Modern Context

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime defines human trafficking with crystal clarity:

"Human Trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit. Men, women and children of all ages and from all backgrounds can become victims of this crime, which occurs in every region of the world. The traffickers often use violence or fraudulent employment agencies and fake promises of education and job opportunities to trick and coerce their victims."

Source: UNODC Human Trafficking Definition

This definition is not abstract—it describes with shocking precision what Korea's educational institutions are doing to foreign women today, particularly those from China, Southeast Asia, and other developing regions. The only difference is that instead of traditional sex trafficking operations, Korea has weaponized its cultural soft power—Hallyu—to create a sophisticated pipeline that lures foreign women into environments where sexual violence is not just tolerated but systematically protected.

Hallyu as a Recruitment Tool: The Modern Comfort Women System

South Korea's global rise has been strategically leveraged to attract international students, investment, and cultural prestige. But behind the dazzling surface lies a disturbing reality: Korean institutions are using Hallyu's appeal to create what amounts to a state-sanctioned trafficking operation targeting foreign women.

The parallels to Japan's World War II sexual slavery system are not coincidental—they reveal a historical feedback loop where Korea has become the perpetrator of the very crimes it condemns Japan for committing.

The Historical Echo: From Japanese Deception to Korean Deception

During WWII, Korean women were coerced or tricked into becoming sex slaves for the Japanese military through false promises of education, employment, and opportunity. The Education for Social Justice Foundation's animation "Herstory" powerfully illustrates how young Korean women were deceived into sexual slavery through fraudulent recruitment schemes.

Today, Korea employs the same tactics:

The difference is that Korea has perfected the system by adding layers of cultural appeal (K-pop, K-dramas) and bureaucratic legitimacy (university credentials, government partnerships) that make the trafficking operation appear not just legal, but desirable.

The Statistical Evidence: Korea's Sexual Violence Crisis

The Korean Women's Development Institute (KWDI) 2020 report provides devastating evidence of the scope of sexual violence in Korean higher education:

These statistics are not random—they reflect deliberate targeting of creative and cultural programs where foreign students are most likely to enroll, drawn by Korea's cultural reputation. The concentration of sexual violence in arts and film programs reveals the calculated nature of this exploitation.

When combined with our documentation of systematic gender imbalances in film faculty—where institutions like K-Arts, Chung-Ang University, and Dongguk University maintain all-male or overwhelmingly male teaching staff—the picture becomes clear: these programs are designed to create environments where sexual violence against vulnerable foreign women is structurally inevitable.

Racialized Sexual Violence: The Xenophobic Dimension

The sexual violence targeting foreign women in Korean institutions is not merely opportunistic—it is explicitly racialized and xenophobic, echoing the same attitudes that made Korean women vulnerable to Japanese exploitation during wartime.

Research documented by The Korea Herald reveals persistent xenophobic attitudes in Korean society that specifically target foreign women as sexually available and disposable. This xenophobia creates the ideological foundation for treating foreign students as legitimate targets for sexual violence.

The racialized nature of this violence becomes evident in:

  1. Targeting patterns: Foreign women, particularly from China and Southeast Asia, face disproportionate sexual violence compared to Korean students
  2. Institutional response: When foreign women report sexual violence, they face additional barriers including language discrimination, cultural dismissal, and threats of visa revocation
  3. Social isolation: Foreign victims are systematically isolated from support networks and community resources, making them more vulnerable to continued exploitation

This mirrors the racialized sexual violence of the sexual slavery system, where Korean women's racial and national identity made them "suitable" victims for systematic sexual exploitation.

Korea's defamation laws represent perhaps the most insidious element of this trafficking system, creating legal mechanisms that punish victims for speaking truth about their experiences.

As documented by the Korea Economic Institute—itself "a public corporation established by the government of the Republic of Korea"—Korea's defamation laws are fundamentally different from international standards:

"According to Article 307 of South Korea's Criminal Act, a person who publicly reveals facts that are damaging to another person is subject to punishment. Even if the statement is true, Article 310 of the Criminal Act specifies that a person is exonerated from defamation only if these facts are true and solely for the interest of the public."

This creates an impossible legal trap for foreign victims:

The KEI analysis reveals how this legal framework explicitly protects powerful perpetrators:

"Critics believe that the law protects the wellbeing of powerful individuals by embedding a highly subjective test requiring proof of public interest... The #MeToo Movement in Korea further revealed that the existing defamation law impedes victims of sexual violence from speaking out."

Historical Pattern of Journalist Intimidation

Korea's weaponization of defamation laws extends beyond silencing victims—it systematically intimidates journalists who might expose sexual violence. According to Freedom House's 2016 analysis, Korea's approach to press freedom reveals a pattern of legal intimidation:

"Defamation is a criminal offense that carries sentences of up to seven years in prison, and reporters or commentators who criticize the government are occasionally threatened with or prosecuted on defamation charges. In October 2014, prosecutors indicted Tatsuya Kato, then the Seoul bureau chief of the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun, on a charge of defaming President Park by citing rumors about the president's activities on the day of the Sewol ferry disaster, which killed about 300 people. In December 2015, the Seoul Central District Court acquitted Kato, ruling that he had engaged in a protected form of speech. At year's end, several other criminal defamation complaints filed by the Park administration against media outlets or journalists were pending."

This legal framework creates a chilling effect where journalists understand that truthful reporting about powerful individuals or institutions can result in criminal prosecution, regardless of public interest or factual accuracy.

Escalating Press Intimidation Under Current Administration

The intimidation of journalists has intensified significantly under President Yoon Suk-yeol's administration. According to The Diplomat's 2024 analysis, the current government has escalated legal actions against the press to unprecedented levels:

"The Yoon administration's aggressive posture toward the media marks a significant escalation in legal actions against journalists. In just the first 18 months of Yoon's presidency, his government pursued defamation cases related to at least 11 instances of coverage, a stark increase from the actions taken by his predecessor over the previous four years. This shift points to a deliberate strategy to silence critical media voices through legal intimidation."

The systematic nature of this intimidation extends beyond legal actions to include:

This creates an environment where Korean journalists understand that investigating sexual violence in universities—particularly when it involves foreign victims and powerful Korean institutions—poses significant professional and legal risks.

Media Silence: The Chilling Effect in Practice

The effectiveness of Korea's legal intimidation strategy becomes evident in the complete media silence surrounding documented sexual violence against foreign students in Korean institutions. Despite extensive documentation and systematic outreach to Korean media outlets, the response has been absolute silence.

Comprehensive Media Outreach: 59 Emails, Zero Responses

Since March 14, 2025, Gender Watchdog has conducted systematic outreach to Korean media outlets, providing documented evidence of sexual violence against foreign students and institutional cover-ups. The outreach has been extensive and targeted:

The complete documentation of this media outreach is preserved in the Gender Watchdog repository:

The Result: Complete Media Blackout

Despite providing documented evidence, statistical analysis, institutional records, and expert commentary across 59 separate communications to Korean media outlets, the response has been:

This silence is not coincidental—it represents the chilling effect of Korea's defamation laws in practice. Korean journalists understand that investigating sexual violence involving Korean universities, professors, and institutions poses significant legal risk under a system where truth alone is not a defense against criminal defamation charges.

International Recognition of Press Freedom Crisis

The silence of Korean media becomes more significant when viewed against international assessments of Korea's deteriorating press freedom. As The Diplomat analysis documents:

"The international community has noticed the erosion of press freedom in South Korea, with foreign media outlets and even the U.S. Department of State's 2022 Human Rights Practices Report documenting the hostile environment facing journalists in South Korea. These reports shone a spotlight on the government's efforts to undermine press freedom, raising concerns about the state of democracy in South Korea."

The establishment of government-controlled "Fake News Report and Counseling Centers" and the systematic defunding of independent fact-checking organizations further demonstrate how Korea's press freedom crisis directly enables the continuation of sexual violence against foreign students by ensuring no domestic media coverage of these issues.

The Role of Media Complicity in Trafficking

The complete silence of Korean media in the face of documented evidence represents more than journalistic failure—it constitutes complicity in the trafficking system itself. By refusing to investigate, report, or even acknowledge evidence of systematic sexual violence against foreign students, Korean media outlets become active participants in:

  1. Information suppression: Preventing potential foreign students from accessing safety information
  2. Perpetrator protection: Allowing abusive individuals and institutions to continue operating without public accountability
  3. Victim isolation: Ensuring that foreign victims have no domestic platform to share their experiences or seek support

This media silence, enabled by Korea's criminalization of truthful reporting through defamation laws, represents a crucial element of the trafficking infrastructure—ensuring that the recruitment, exploitation, and silencing of foreign women can continue without domestic exposure or accountability.

Industry Censorship: Coordinated Information Control

Our documentation of systematic censorship across Korean film industry platforms reveals a coordinated effort to suppress information about sexual violence in creative industries where foreign students are concentrated.

The censorship pattern demonstrates sophisticated information control:

This reveals that Korean institutions understand the gravity of these accusations and are actively working to prevent foreign students and international partners from accessing information that could protect potential victims.

The Victimhood Blind Spot: How Historical Trauma Enables Current Abuse

Korea's systematic trafficking of foreign women is facilitated by what scholars term "victim nationalism" or "selective moral memory"—the phenomenon where national identity built around historical victimhood creates psychological and social conditions that enable the same crimes against others.

The National Victimhood Consciousness

South Korea's post-colonial national identity contains a strong element of what international scholars call "national victimhood consciousness", particularly regarding Japanese colonization (1910-1945). This historical narrative serves multiple functions:

  1. Political Legitimacy: Both conservative and progressive governments use anti-Japanese historical memory for domestic political unity
  2. Moral Authority: Korea leverages its victimization to build international sympathy and cultural credibility
  3. External Enemy Framing: Focus on historical injustices diverts attention from current domestic failures, including systematic sexual violence against foreign students

The "단일민족 (danil minjok)" or "one blood, one people" narrative that emerged from this victimhood consciousness intentionally excludes multiculturalism and foreign students, rendering them invisible and disposable within Korean society.

The Moral Blindness of Victimhood

When national identity becomes too tightly constructed around "we are the victim," it creates dangerous psychological and social conditions:

This represents what scholars call "postcolonial nationalism"—where anti-Japanese historical memory becomes part of state-building while inadvertently reproducing similar patterns of racialized sexual violence against vulnerable foreign populations.

Historical Pattern: From Vietnam to Korean Universities

Korea's systematic targeting of foreign women in educational institutions is not an isolated phenomenon—it represents the continuation of documented patterns of racialized violence against foreign populations. During the Vietnam War (1964-1973), Korean soldiers committed massacres against Vietnamese civilians that bear disturbing similarities to current institutional behaviors.

According to The Korea Times, Korean troops killed approximately 5,000-9,000 Vietnamese civilians, with reports documenting systematic sexual violence including "cutting off females' breasts after rape, killing children and senior citizens." The Hankyoreh documented that these atrocities followed consistent patterns across multiple locations, indicating institutional rather than isolated incidents.

The parallel becomes explicit in how Korea responds to historical accountability. As The Hankyoreh observed: "Just as Japan has ignored a resolution to the military comfort women issue, so South Koreans tend to be unwilling to confront the massacres of Vietnamese civilians as a mirror of the truth and justice they demand from Japan."

Korea's victimhood consciousness creates the same psychological conditions that enable both historical atrocities against Vietnamese civilians and current systematic sexual violence against foreign students—the inability to see Korea as perpetrator while demanding justice as victim.

The Sexual Slavery Parallel: Historical Repetition

The parallels between Korea's current treatment of foreign women and Japan's historical sexual slavery system are not merely symbolic—they represent the repetition of identical systematic mechanisms, enabled by Korea's weaponization of its own historical trauma:

Deceptive Recruitment

Systematic Exploitation

State Protection of Perpetrators

Victim Silencing

The cruelest irony is that Korea leverages its own historical victimization—specifically being victims of systematic sexual slavery—to build international sympathy and cultural appeal. Korea has spent decades building moral authority based on the tragedy of victim survivors of Japan's wartime sexual slavery, presenting itself as a nation that understands suffering and injustice. This historical victimization becomes part of Hallyu's cultural credibility, making Korea appear safe and progressive to potential foreign students.

But this same sympathy and moral authority (built on their own trauma) creates a psychological blind spot that enables Korea to lure foreign women into the exact same systematic sexual exploitation that historical Korean women suffered under Japanese occupation. This represents the most extreme form of "selective moral memory"—where Korea's national victimhood consciousness creates conditions that facilitate creating new victims while feeling morally immune from criticism.

This pattern of selective moral memory extends beyond current educational institutions. As The Hankyoreh analysis observed: "Those who prosper through the misfortune of others often seek in their arrogance to disregard that suffering. Just as Japan has ignored a resolution to the wartime sexual slavery issue, so South Koreans tend to be unwilling to confront the massacres of Vietnamese civilians as a mirror of the truth and justice they demand from Japan."

The same psychological mechanisms that enable Korea to demand Japanese accountability for historical sexual violence while denying accountability for documented atrocities in Vietnam now facilitate the systematic sexual violence against foreign students. As one framework suggests: "South Korea demands justice for the victim survivors of Japan's wartime sexual slavery—yet today, it recruits young foreign women under false promises, allows them to be abused, and silences them through criminal defamation and corporate legal threats. If Korea truly stands against sexual exploitation, it must apply the same moral standard at home."

In essence, Korea uses testimonies of victim survivors of Japan's wartime sexual slavery as marketing material to recruit new victims into a modern version of the same system, protected by the moral authority derived from its own historical suffering.

International Law Violations: Korea as a Trafficking State

Korea's systematic use of cultural appeal, fraudulent educational promises, and legal mechanisms to trap foreign women in sexually violent environments constitutes violations of multiple international laws:

UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons

Korea's recruitment of foreign women through deceptive cultural and educational promises, followed by systematic sexual exploitation protected by legal and institutional mechanisms, directly violates the UN trafficking protocol.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Korea's defamation laws that criminalize truthful speech about sexual violence violate Article 19 (freedom of expression) and Article 26 (equal protection under law).

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

Korea's systematic failure to protect foreign women from sexual violence, combined with legal frameworks that punish victims, violates its CEDAW obligations.

The Hallyu Smokescreen: Cultural Soft Power as Trafficking Infrastructure

Korea's investment in Hallyu serves a dual purpose: generating international revenue and creating the cultural appeal necessary to recruit foreign victims into its trafficking system. The Korean government's massive investment in cultural exports—including Netflix's $2.5 billion investment in Korean content—functions as trafficking infrastructure by:

  1. Creating desirability: Making Korea appear safe, modern, and culturally sophisticated to potential foreign students
  2. Masking structural problems: Using cultural achievements to deflect attention from systematic sexual violence in creative industries
  3. Generating institutional credibility: Allowing Korean universities to appear internationally connected and progressive while maintaining predatory internal structures

Breaking the Cycle: Necessary Reforms

To end Korea's systematic trafficking of foreign women through its educational and cultural institutions, several immediate reforms are necessary:

  1. Amend defamation laws to allow truth as a complete defense, following international standards
  2. Criminalize institutional retaliation against sexual violence victims
  3. Establish independent oversight of university sexual violence prevention and response

Institutional Accountability

  1. Mandate gender-balanced faculty in all academic programs
  2. Require independent reporting mechanisms for sexual violence
  3. Implement regular auditing of international student safety and support systems

International Pressure

  1. Suspend educational partnerships with Korean institutions failing to meet international safety standards
  2. Condition cultural and economic agreements on human rights compliance
  3. Establish international monitoring of foreign student safety in Korean institutions

Conclusion: From Historical Victim to Contemporary Perpetrator

Korea's transformation from victim of systematic sexual violence to perpetrator of the same crimes represents one of the most troubling examples of how "victim nationalism" can create conditions that enable oppression. This is not merely historical irony—it is how national trauma can create psychological blind spots that facilitate new victims while maintaining moral immunity.

Korea's "national victimhood consciousness" has created a moral blind spot that renders foreign women invisible and disposable. The same legal frameworks that Korea uses to demand justice for victim survivors of Japan's wartime sexual slavery (through international advocacy) are denied to foreign women suffering sexual violence in Korean institutions today through criminalized defamation laws and institutional retaliation.

The historical trauma that built Korea's cultural appeal and moral authority has created psychological conditions that enable foreign women to be lured into sexually violent environments protected by law and institutional power, creating a trafficking system that rivals the very crimes Korea condemns. This represents "selective moral memory" at its most dangerous—where historical victimization creates blind spots that facilitate perpetrating identical crimes against vulnerable populations while feeling morally justified in resisting criticism or reform.

The international community must recognize that Korea's cultural exports and educational programs are not merely soft power tools—they are trafficking infrastructure designed to recruit vulnerable foreign women into systematic sexual exploitation.

Until Korea dismantles the legal, institutional, and cultural mechanisms that protect sexual violence against foreign women, every foreign student recruited to Korean universities represents a potential trafficking victim, lured by false promises and trapped by a system designed to exploit and silence them.

The sex slaves of today are not historical figures—they are foreign women studying in Korean universities right now, suffering in silence because truth itself has been criminalized in the service of protecting their perpetrators.

Additional Resources

This analysis is part of Gender Watchdog's ongoing documentation of systematic sexual violence in Korean institutions. All information is shared for educational and advocacy purposes under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.