The Burning Sun Scandal: Highlighting the Crisis of Women’s Rights in South Korea

By Eager Advocate

 

The Burning Sun Scandal was a major entertainment and sex scandal that erupted in South Korea in 2019, involving K-Pop celebrities and high-ranking police officers. The scandal centers around Burning Sun, a nightclub run by Seungri, a member of one of the biggest boy bands at the time, Big Bang. Rising Sun became such a sensation that a table at the nightclub cost up to $70,000 at one point. VIPs would pay for these ridiculously expensive tables, expecting to be entitled to more than just drinks, acting as if they were above the law. 

 

The business model of Rising Sun was that employees of the club would rape-drug their female customers to have sex with VIP clients. These men would send videos of VIPs raping unconscious women into multiple group chats purely for their own entertainment. The chat logs revealed the men using misogynistic and degrading language to refer to women, speaking about women as "prey" and objects to be exploited. This went unnoticed by the media for many years, largely due to the involvement and complicity of high-ranking police officers actively covering up these crimes, even involving an officer who worked closely with the President of South Korea.

 

Seungri was initially sentenced to three years and fined 1.15 billion won for offenses. However, his sentence was reduced to only one year and six months on appeal. Jung Joon-young, a K-pop singer-songwriter, was sentenced to six years in prison but was later reduced to five years. Choi Jong-hoon, a guitarist, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The sentences handed out were grossly inadequate, utterly failing to reflect the severity of their heinous crimes of rape, the sharing of explicit images, and more. Many police officers and government officials even managed to evade imprisonment altogether, underscoring the profound corruption within the South Korean legal system.

 

The Burning Sun scandal has laid bare the infuriating and intolerable crisis of women's rights in South Korea, exposing the deep-seated misogyny and rampant sexual violence that plagues our society. Women are treated as mere objects, their dignity trampled upon by those who wield power and influence. Instead of being a beacon of justice, the legal system has proven to be a fortress, protecting the perpetrators and allowing them to escape accountability. The way this scandal was handled is nothing short of a disgrace, making it clear that the safety and rights of women are not a priority. This has left countless women feeling unsafe and abandoned, knowing that the very institutions meant to protect them are complicit in their oppression. It's time for a radical change. Our voices will no longer be silenced.