Rapes and beatings: The torment of South Korea’s young athletes, Latest World News - The New Paper
World

Rapes and beatings: The torment of South Korea’s young athletes

This article is more than 12 months old

Former South Korean tennis player opens up on sexual, physical abuse in sports

SEOUL: When Kim Eun-hee was 10 years old, a primary school child with dreams of tennis stardom, her coach raped her for the first time. Then he did it again. And again. And again.

The would-be South Korean champion was too young to even know what sex was. But she knew she dreaded the repeated orders to come to his room at their training camp, the pain and the humiliation.

"It took me years to realise that it was rape," Kim told AFP, adding: "He kept raping me for two years... he told me it was a secret between him and me."

Now 27, Kim spoke to international media and waived all rights to anonymity to reveal how female athletes in the country have silently suffered sexual abuse by their coaches.

South Korea is perhaps best known for its industrial prowess and K-pop stars, but it is also a regional sporting power and besides Japan is the only Asian country to have hosted both the summer and winter Olympics.

Despite its relatively small size and population, South Korea is regularly in the top 10 of the medal table at both Games, and is globally dominant in archery, taekwondo and short-track speed skating, while packing the top positions in world women's golf rankings.

But it remains hierarchical and patriarchal in many respects, including a close-knit, male-dominated sports establishment - where personal connections can be almost as important as performances in forging a successful career.

In a highly competitive society where winning is everything, many young athletes forego school or live away from families to train with their peers and coaches full-time, staying in a dorm-like environment.

The training camp system - akin to models used by Communist sporting machines such as China - is credited with helping the country punch well above its weight in sports.

But it has proven to be the setting for abuse in several sports - especially of underage athletes.

"The coach was the king of my world, dictating everything about my daily life from how to exercise to when to sleep and what to eat," said Kim, adding that he beat her repeatedly as part of "training".

The coach was eventually dismissed after some parents complained of his "suspicious behaviour", but was simply moved to another school.

Many victims are forced into silence in a world where going public often means the end of any aspirations to stardom.

"This is a community where those who speak out are ostracised and bullied as 'traitors' who brought shame to the sport," said sports psychology professor Chung Yong-chul at Seoul's Sogang University.

A 2014 survey commissioned by the Korean Sports & Olympic Committee showed that around one in seven female athletes had experienced sexual abuse in the previous year. But 70 per cent of them did not seek help.

"Parents of many underage victims give up pressing charges after a sport official, usually a friend of the abuser, tells them, 'Do you wanna see your child's future as an athlete destroyed?'" said Prof Chung Hee-joon, a prominent commentator on sporting issues.

Sporting organisations often try to hush up misbehaviour, merely transferring the offender to a new institution, he added, blaming the country's elitist sports culture.

"Sports associations turn a blind eye as long as the sex abusers manage to produce high-performing athletes in this blind pursuit of medals - and their abuses are considered a small, insignificant price to pay in this process," he said.

Kim won a women's doubles bronze at the South's national sports festival but was always nauseated by players panting heavily on court, a sound that reminded her of her abuser.

She ran into the man at a tournament two years ago. "I was horrified to see that my rapist continued to coach young tennis players for more than a decade as if nothing had happened," she said.

She filed a criminal complaint against him, and he was charged.

Four of her friends testified about abuses they had suffered at his hands and Kim took the stand herself, although she could not bear to face him and exercised her right to have him removed from the room.

Later, she stood just outside the court to hear him convicted of rape with injury and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Now retired from competition, Kim teaches tennis to young children at a city gym.

"Seeing them laughing and enjoying playing tennis heals me," she said.

"I want them to become happy athletes, unlike me.

"What's the point of winning Olympic medals and becoming a sports star if you have to be constantly beaten and abused to get there?" - AFP

WORLD