A 36-year-old convenience store owner was fined 2 million won ($1,450) by court for shooting a customer in the face with a gas-operated gun, after the customer hit him with a carton of milk several times, court said Monday. Incheon District Court found the defendant guilty of special violence and special destruction and damage, both of which are applied when the perpetrator uses a dangerous weapon. The defendant got into an argument with a 65-year-old customer at a convenience store he runs in

Social Affairs June 10, 2024

A recent showed that many South Korean workers think the optimal cap for weekly work hours should be 48 hours, four hours less than the legally allowed 52 and far lower than the 69 previously pursued by the government. Local civic group Workplace Gapjil 119 on Sunday revealed the results of the survey it conducted in February on 1,000 workers across the country, asking opinions on the legal limit for working hours per week. The leading answer was 48 hours, picked by 42.5 percent of the responden

Social Affairs June 10, 2024

Gimpo city government said Saturday it is taking measures to slap a two-month suspension of operation on a Gimpo-based club that operated overnight for teenage customers. The club in Gurae-dong, Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, promoted itself as a nightclub for teens, exclusively for students ranging from the second year of middle school to the third year of high school. According to its Instagram page, it opened at 5 p.m. and closed at 3 a.m. the next day. Operators of the club claimed that the busin

Social Affairs June 9, 2024

The South Korean government said Sunday it has hired experts to conduct research on adopting a new system in which local companies submit detailed information about their benefits related to workers' well-being. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the system would have firms disclose the state of the various systems they have to allow their workers a better life, such as maternity leave, parental leave, shortened working hours for parents, telecommunicating and flexible worki

Social Affairs June 9, 2024

Scandal-ridden trot star Kim Ho-jung has found himself at the center of yet another controversy, after it was reported that his fans have donated mass amounts of his records to charity. Fans of the 32-year-old singer, currently under investigation for drunk driving, recently petitioned the state-run broadcaster to withdraw its ban of Kim, saying his "good influence" has led to fans donating close to 10 billion won ($7.25 million) to charity over the past four years. KBS denied the requ

Social Affairs June 9, 2024

Seoul Metropolitan Government recently notified the legislative process for a revision an ordinance on gender equality to change the mentions of "gender equality" to "equality of both genders" touching off a dispute that the revision amounts to discrimination toward the LGBTQ+ people. The revision of the Seoul Metropolitan Government Framework Ordinance on Gender Equality was proposed by councilwoman Hwang You-jung of the ruling People Power Party, and will replace all the

Social Affairs June 9, 2024

The Seoul Metropolitan Government on Thursday announced a series of safety measures concerning the rental and riding of four-wheel bicycles, which include limiting the areas where they can be operated, reducing the number of bikes and allowing only adults to rent the foot-powered vehicles. The city government in March kicked off test operations renting out 90 four-wheelers at parks along the Han River. Fifteen of these bikes were stationed at each of Banpo Hangang Park and Ttukseom Hangang Park,

Travel June 8, 2024

A record-high number of foreigners received medical services at hospitals and clinics in Gangnam last year, the district office said Thursday. The Gangnam-gu Office said 185,559 foreign nationals visited the district for medical services in 2023, which accounted for 30.6 percent of all 605,768 foreign patients in South Korea. The number of foreign patients in Gangnam tripled from the year before, marking an all-time high. Gangnam-gu is one of the three districts in the affluent Gangnam region

Social Affairs June 8, 2024

A 16-year-old high school student received a certificate of appreciation from local police Wednesday for alerting his neighbors and helping them escape during a fire earlier this month. Kim Min-jun, in his second year of Gwangdong High School in Namyangju, Gyeonggi Province, was commended by the Namyangju Bukbu Police Station for his contribution during the June 1 fire at an apartment complex in the town of Jinjeob-eup. When the fire broke out at around 9:25 p.m. at a second floor unit, Kim -- a

People June 6, 2024

Education authorities at North Jeolla Province said it has filed charges against the parent of a third-grader, who recently made headlines by physically assaulting and shouting profanity at the vice principal of his school. According to the Jeonbuk State Office of Education, officials have filed a report on the boy's mother as a possible case of child abuse by neglect. The mother had been told by the school multiple times that the boy urgently needed behavioral treatment, but she chose to i

Social Affairs June 6, 2024

A local YouTuber's quest to reveal the identities of 44 men responsible for a 2004 Miryang gang rape case has faced opposition from a local women's rights group, which disclosed late Wednesday that the YouTuber never got the consent of the crime's principal victim. The Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center said in a press release that the YouTuber's claim to have "communicated with the victim's family via mail, and agreed to reveal (identity) of all 44" is not

Social Affairs June 6, 2024

The Miryang gang rape case of 2004 is widely remembered as one of the worst sex crime cases in South Korean history, sparking nationwide furor for not only its brutality, but also for victim blaming by the local community and what has been seen as a lack of proper punishment for those responsible. Forty-four high school boys in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, were found to have taken part in the brutal physical and sexual assault of multiple underage victims over the course of a year. The

Social Affairs June 5, 2024

A South Korean court on Wednesday ruled in favor of a man in his 40s who had challenged a recent decision by the government not to acknowledge him as having an intellectual disability. In the recent administrative litigation, the Incheon District Court ruled that the man should be considered to have an IQ of 65, as he claims. The plaintiff in 2021 applied to be registered as disabled with the Incheon Metropolitan Government, but the city declined his request, based on an examination by the Natio

Social Affairs June 5, 2024

A 46-year-old man who filed 112 fake reports to the police in the span of about 10 months was sentenced to 10 months in prison, Jeonju District Court said Wednesday. The defendant filed the fake reports between November of 2022 and September of 2023, falsely claiming that he killed a man, or that he stabbed an acquaintance with a knife. An appellate court of the case found the defendant guilty of obstruction of performance of official duties by fraudulent means, stipulated by Article 137 of the

Social Affairs June 5, 2024

A police officer was recently suspended after she illegally obtained the address of a popular trot singer and went to his home, local media outlets reported Wednesday, The Chungnam Provincial Police Agency officer in her 30s obtained the singer's address through an internal police database without permission from her supervisor in April. The singer was startled by her unannounced visit and reported her to the police. The police confirmed the officer had accessed the singer's address fo

Social Affairs June 5, 2024