South Korea’s ‘dating violence’ problem exposed by young woman’s death after savage beating
- Hwang Ye-jin, 25, had her ribs broken, internal organs damaged and suffered bleeding on the brain after she was savagely attacked by her boyfriend
- A petition filed by her mother calling for new legislation to outlaw dating violence in South Korea has been signed more than 372,000 times
Hwang Ye-jin had her ribs broken, internal organs damaged and suffered bleeding on the brain from the attack at her home in Seoul on July 25. She died from her injuries in a hospital’s intensive care unit some three weeks later.
Surveillance footage from the night of the attack shows Hwang having her head repeatedly slammed against a wall by a man, who is later seen dragging her unconscious, blood-soaked body out of a lift at her apartment building.
The 30-year-old man shown in the footage, who told police he was angry at Hwang because she had told people about their relationship, was initially arrested before being released pending trial after a court deemed him not to be a flight risk.
Outraged by the court’s decision, and the fact that her daughter’s killer was charged with manslaughter rather than murder, Hwang’s mother made public the surveillance footage of the attack, and released her daughter’s name and photograph to the media.