KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

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Abstract

 

Study on Limitations of Protection Discourses in Gender-Based Violence Policies and Policy Directions: Focusing on Sexual Violence Prevention Policies

 

Jeonghye Kim

Young-ju Cho

Jihyun Choo

Hyojung Kim

Sooyeon Jung

 

Ⅰ. Introduction

 

1. Research Purpose Focusing on the primary prevention of gender-based violence

–intervention against gender-based violence prior to its occurrence - as a policy on gender-based violence, the purpose of this study is to identify limitations of the prevention of gender-based violence arising from the approach of classifying women as a group vulnerable to gender-based violence and treating them as targets of protection en masse, and to seek directions for policies on gender-based violence.

 

2. Research Content

Performed the following studies considering the continuity of gender-based violence, focusing on the sexual violence prevention policy, which reveals most clearly the protective attitude toward women as a group among prevention policies on gender-based violence.

 

Conducted theoretical examinations on the concept of gender-based violence, response models to gender-based violence, and limitations of protectionist approach to women in gender-based violence policies through literature review. Analyzed the process of developing policies on gender-based violence, and the topography of discussion on ‘protection’; analyzed changes in gender-based violence policies by period and the contents of ‘protection’ policies of women centering on the primary prevention policies on sexual violence among gender-based violence policies; and analyzed the meaning of ‘protection’ in the discussion regarding current gender-based violence policies.

 

Identified how protection of women works and what are its accompanying limitations in the process of forming and implementing gender-based violence prevention policies by conducting interview surveys of instructors for violence prevention education, safety policy officers at local governments, and experts on gender-based violence policies.

 

Presented implications to prepare policy alternatives by analyzing policy cases of overseas countries which have implemented gender-based violence polices in response to socio-cultural and socio-structural causes. Based on the results of the aforementioned analyses, presented directions for future gender-based violence policies and developed policy alternatives.

 

3. Research Methods

1) Literature review

Reviewed the concept of gender-based violence, response models to gender-based violence, limitations of policies centered on ‘protection of women’ in gender-based violence polices, and overseas policy cases of gender-based violence, and presented implications by analyzing past domestic and overseas studies and international human rights norms.

 

2) Policy analysis through vocabulary network analysis and topic modeling

Analyzed the network of vocabulary that appears in government statements about sexual violence and the centrality of each vocabulary in order to examine how discourses on protection specifically materialize in gender-based violence policies. Selected for the analysis the documents containing such vocabulary as ‘sexual violence’ and ‘sexual crimes’ among the press releases provided via Korea Policy Briefing, and analyzed a total of 1,790 documents dated from August 4, 2000 to June 5, 2020.

 

Analyzed contents of prevention policies, including the policy purpose, implementation methods, targets and implementers, and changes in policy contents by period based on the vocabulary network analysis. Contents subject to analysis included the above-mentioned press releases, home pages of relevant ministries, legislation purpose of related laws, basic plans for women’s policies, gender equality policies and implementation performances, gender budget bills and gender impact assessment reports, and preceding studies on the current status of each policy.

 

3) Focus group interview

Analyzed how ‘protection of women’ works in the formation and implementation of gender-based violence policies focusing on the prevention of sexual violence and safety policies, and explored directions for gender-based violence policies. The subjects of the survey included 20 experts, including experts on violence prevention education, and experts on safety policies and sexual violence prevention policies of local governments. The interviewed experts on violence prevention education included three health teachers in charge of school and youth sexual abuse prevention education, four instructors at youth sexual culture centers, and three experts participating in training instructors for violence prevention. The people who worked for safety policies and sexual violence prevention policies at local governments and were interviewed included three government officials, three researchers on community safety policies, and four activists. As for the main contents of the interview, identified interaction between educators and education participants in sexual violence prevention education, participants’ reception of education; examined community safety policies, including content of major projects in the communities, contexts of implementing the projects, project participants’ awareness of sexual violence; and collected opinions about directions for improving sexual violence prevention policies.

 

4) Counsel of experts

Conducted counsel of experts, including researchers on gender-based violence and field activists, to seek their opinions regarding research directions and planning, surveys, design, and research result analysis, and reflect the opinions in this research.

 

Ⅱ. Concept of Gender-Based Violence and Theoretical Discussion on Prevention Policies

1. Concept and Nature of Gender-Based Violence

International human rights norms make it clear that violence against women is gender-based violence and falls under forms of discrimination against women. The general recommendation on violence against women by the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women reiterated violence against women as a form of discrimination against women. The 1993 UN Declaration of the Elimination of Violence against Women stated violence against women as ‘gender-based’ violence, and defined the term ‘violence against women’ as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” The definition of ‘gender-based violence’ has since been widely used internationally. The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, which entered into force in 2014, slightly expanded the definition of ‘violence against women’ stated by the UN Declaration of the Elimination of Violence against Women, and defined ‘gender-based violence against women’ as “violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects women disproportionately” (Article 3-d), thereby expressly stating gender-based violence as discrimination.

 

Korea enacted a law on special cases concerning sexual violence in the early 1990s and the Framework Act on Prevention of Violence Against Women in 2018. According to examination of the legislative process, the concept of gender-based violence was stressed in the discussion process, but the structural nature of gender-based violence weakened in the process of making the laws. As the relations between violence and discrimination became insignificant, the process revealed a limitation that the laws emphasized sexual violence and violence against women only. Gender-based violence leaves ‘the effect of control and regulation’ on the group of victims and latent victims, and reproduces gender order by spreading fear (이나영 · 허민숙, 2014: 83~84). Responses to gender-based violence, including the attitude of stressing the seriousness of violence and the attitude of emphasizing gender difference and placing women on the position of victims only, paradoxically fix women on the position of victims and restrict women’s identities to mere recipients of protection.

 

2. Consideration of Gender Category and Intersectionality of Gender-Based Violence

 

Despite the fact that gender-based violence is largely perpetrated against women in a sexually discriminative society, the concept of gender-based violence is not identical to violence against women. Gender-based violence is committed not only against ‘biological women’ but also against those who are considered lacking in masculinity or who are denied gaining masculinity, including boys, men in lower class, gays, and transgender people. Based on the issues raised over dichotomous gender order, it is necessary to consider the concept of gender-based violence that expands to the practice of fixing a dichotomous notion of gender on individuals and forcing them to live as beings corresponding to the assigned gender (루인, 2010: 71).

 

Seeing gender-based violence as ‘violence against women’ only and explaining male or female sex as the single factor of gender-based violence is to consider the concept of sex at birth only and at the same time to obscure the impact of diverse positions and identities of each individual on power relations. Socio-structural discrimination and violence are related not just to gender but also to diverse identities, including sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, education, religion, economic standing, employment relations, region of origin, immigration status, language, marital status, and family type. These identities intersect with each other and lead to a unique form of discrimination. As such, it is required to include the intersectional impact of gender and identities other than gender when examining the concept of gender-based violence and response to such violence.

 

3. Prevention Models on Gender-Based Violence

Gender-based violence prevention policies adopt various approaches according as where they find causes for gender-based violence or where they put focus to prevent gender-based violence. The criminology model, on which various types of safety policies are based, aims to confirm factors providing opportunities of crimes. Although the model brings perpetrators to its explanation of violence, the criminology model tends to employ a strategy of actually focusing on victims and protectors. This model is criticized in that it does not make perpetrators visible in gender-based violence but reinforces the responsibilities of victims.

 

The public health model for the prevention of gender-based violence is an ecological model that understands violence as the outcome of interacting factors at the four layers of individuals, relations, communities, and society. This model views risks of violence as predictable and stresses primary prevention among the means of prevention. It is pointed out that this public health model has problems of explaining violence in the language of ‘risks,’ rarely addresses structural issues while stressing personal elements in the assessment of ‘risks,’ and ascribes the causes and impacts of violence to individuals. Feminist approach to gender-based violence is to discover causes for gender-based violence from the patriarchal system, hierarchical structure of masculinity and femininity, and gender power relations. The stance of focusing on socio-structural inequality regards gender-based violence as the result of long suppression and inequality of women (Kuskoff & Parsell, 2020: 229). As such, cultural and structural aspects of gender-based violence work in an interconnected manner. While the criminology model and the public health model put focus on individuals, the feminist model highlights that gender-based violence is an issue of inequality of social resources granted to women and men as groups and of gender power relations. The feminist model opens the way to examine the relations between gender-based violence and the gender performance forced by the dichotomous gender order.

 

Ⅲ. Prevention Policies on Gender-Based Violence and Protection Discourses

 

1. Legal Basis and Structure of Prevention Policies

The Framework Act on Gender Equality, the Framework Act on the Prevention of Violence Against Women, and Basic Plans for Policies on Women have maintained preventive approaches to gender-based violence largely from the following three aspects: ① education and public relations, ② survey and research, and ③ improvement of hazardous environment. These prevention policies emphasized different means and targets depending on the period as follows:

 

ㆍ The first period of women’s policies (1998–2002) focused on domestic violence and protection of sexual violence victims, but there were no prevention policies for unspecified individuals in this period.

 

ㆍ The second period of women’s policies (2003–2007) began to introduce public relations and prevention education, database-building as policy agendas with the emergence of gender-based violence as the big agenda.

 

ㆍ The third period of women’s policies (2008–2012) added the perspective of intersectionality among sexual violence, domestic violence, children and adolescents, people with disabilities, and immigrant women, but its problem awareness of gender relations did not extend to go beyond the protection of victims.

 

ㆍ The fourth period of women’s policies (2013–2017) set the major agenda of elimination of violence as the top priority in the Basic Plan, and the creation of safe community environment emerged as it was pointed out that existing prevention policies had the limitation of focusing on the improvement of awareness only.

 

ㆍ The first period of gender equality policies (2015–2017) upgraded the creation of ‘safe social environment’ to the point of separating the agenda as a detailed goal.

 

ㆍ The second period of gender equality policies (2018–2022) continued projects to improve the environment of hazardous areas and set the eradication of violence against women in the online space as the direction for prevention policies.

 

2. Changes in Prevention Policies 1) Prevention education In the early 2000s, the Ministry of Education established the Basic Plan for Sex Education in School in 2000. But the professed policy goal was to make known the harm that autonomy of sexuality may bring rather than to raise the issue of gender relations, such as making the prevention education on sex trade mandatory ‘to develop sound values on sex and to prevent prostitution.’

 

In the mid-2000s and thereafter, various methods of education on the prevention of gender-based violence expanded in the policy keynote that called for the adoption of a gender-responsive perspective. Still, the targets of sexual violence prevention education were mostly limited to children and youth. Also, the approach of prevention education to groups who were assumed latent victims for education targets exposed the limitation of conducting the prevention education centered on avoiding and responding to victimization. Although there was a repetition of school education to promote gender equality as well as movement to expand gender equality education other than violence prevention education, school education continued to have the limitation of focusing on sex education.

 

In the mid-2010s and thereafter, ‘violence prevention education’ concerning sexual harassment, sex trade, sexual violence, and domestic violence began to be implemented in an integrated manner from the perspective of gender equality in 2014. As the integrated violence prevention education began to be conducted, there emerged a movement aimed to expand a gender perspective on human rights education in school. ‘Gender equality education’ was also included in the cross-curricular learning themes to strengthen the gender equality perspective in the curriculum. In addition, attempts followed to expand the targets of prevention education from public agencies to the private sector. Also, methods of monitoring the implementation and quality management of education advanced.

 

In 2018 and thereafter, prevention education has expanded to include the military, businesses, and universities with a goal to prevent ‘violence against women.’ As the Me Too movement and cases of sexual abuse committed by powerful and/or prominent men emerged in each sector as issues, the government introduced policies to raise the effectiveness of prevention education. These polices are characterized by the aspect that they expanded the prevention education focusing on women’s experience of falling victim to violence rather than that of children and adolescents. In the case of the ‘visiting prevention education on digital sexual crimes’ for elementary and secondary school students, its focus is on safety rules to prevent digital sexual crimes, provision of information on how to report victimization, and urging them to be aware of the danger and violent nature of the acts of illegal filming and distribution.

 

2) Building a safe space

In the early 2000s, environmental improvement became a goal of major prevention policies after the legislation of the Act on the Punishment of Sexual Crimes and Protection of Victims Thereof. Entering the 2000s, prevention policies on gender-based violence centered on the ‘protection’ of adolescents, and the tasks of improving the environment began to materialize focusing on the improvement of hazardous environment for adolescents.

 

In the mid-2000s and thereafter, prevention policies began to expand from the protection of adolescents to children as a series of sexual violence against children became an issue. In this process, the fear and terror women felt in public spaces emerged as a matter of interest. Polices that were introduced, expanded, and connected in this process included the ‘women-friendly city’ projects advocated by the Community Solidarity for Protecting Children and Women and local governments. Although the women-friendly city projects claimed to “operate community policies in which women and men equally participate and to achieve women’s empowerment and care and safety,” actual construction of a gender equal space was centered on the removal of hazardous elements from public spaces, including schools, restrooms, and streets on their way home.

 

In the mid-2010 and thereafter, it was pointed out that existing prevention policies centered on education and public relations were insufficient to bring practical changes in the community due to their focus on the aspect of awareness. In this background, building a safe infrastructure, including the creation of safe community and school environments emerged as the essence of prevention policies. Accordingly, applications expanded that enabled users to inform their location to the protectors or people around them or to report any danger in emergency, including not only closed circuit television (CCTV) but also smart applications for safe homecoming and SOS security service for the people. By providing such information, individuals came to be held responsible for avoiding the danger.

 

 

 

 

In 2018 and thereafter, the policy keynote centered on the Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) continued. As illegal photo-taking became an issue, projects to improve the physical environment tended to rapidly expand through digital technologies. In addition to illegal filming, multiuse facilities, and streets, and houses began to be pointed out as major spaces for the prevention of crimes. The environment improvement projects expanded to one-person woman households, or households without men, and small business places run by women. As discussions repeatedly find the necessity for prevention policies from women’s fear of crimes, there remains the limitation of highlighting women’s vulnerability. Sexual violence is considered as a safety issue of preventing potential offenders from finding opportunities to perpetrate crimes rather than as a problem of unequal gender relations, and as an issue of maintaining a subjective wellbeing of ‘feeling secure’ rather than setting prevention itself as the priority goal of the policies.

 

3. Changes in Protection Discourses and Prevention Policies: Analysis of Press Releases on Sexual Violence Policies

 

To identify the process in which prevention policies appear in the statements and remarks regarding ‘protection,’ this study conducted a vocabulary network analysis of policy briefings related to sexual violence. For the past two decades since 2000, support, prevention, protection, and safety were set, in that order, for a goal to attain through intervention in policies on sexual violence. Human rights and gender equality were in the lower ranking. In other words, discussion on what the protection and prevention were for has been left out.

 

When the developments of discussion on ‘protection’ by period and relations between the discussion and certain prevention policies were examined through the analysis of the centrality and topics of vocabulary network, the findings are as follows: In the early 2000s, there was a lack of conception of prevention except for the improvement of harmful environment for youth. The discussion was largely centered on the protection of children and adolescents in the investigation process. In the mid-2000s and thereafter, discussion on prevention in the sense of protecting unspecified individuals began in earnest. In spite of the emergence of spatial approach such as the Community Solidarity for Protecting Children and Women and women-friendly city projects, discussion in this period concentrated on the protection of children and adolescents like in the previous period. Gender-based violence or the purpose of protection was understood as an issue of blocking strange perpetrators from approaching potential victims.

 

In the mid-2010s and thereafter, sexual violence policies per se sharply decreased. There was no big difference in policy approach between this period and previous periods, but prevention began to be stressed more than protection. In 2018 and thereafter, ‘women,’ not children and adolescents, have been at the center of discussion on protection. Not until this period were discourses materialized that gender-based violence, including digital sexual violence and sexual harassment, was not an issue of protection but a gendered issue. ‘Gender equality’ appeared as a goal of sexual violence policies. Compared to previous periods, the trend of implementing prevention policies based on the necessity of protection weakened in this period.

 

Ⅳ. Protection Discourses in the Field of Sexual Violence Prevention Policies: Focusing on FGI

 

1. Contents and Effects of Protection Discourses

1) Highlight the vulnerability of victims and reproduce ‘victim-likeness’

Since the legislation of the Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act in 2010, prevention education on sexual violence has tended to become mandatory and expanded. Community safety polices as well have expanded along with implementation of women-friendly city projects. Despite the significance of mandatory prevention education on sexual violence, education participants have shown great resistance or skepticism to prevention education. The process of proving the necessity and justification for prevention education on sexual violence resulted in stressing the seriousness of sexual violence and the difficulties sexual violence victims had in their lives. In the case of community safety polices too, when implementing projects related to the prevention of sexual violence, their manner of persuading the necessity for the policies led to emphasizing the gravity of women’s victimization and the pain they suffered after falling victim.

 

Stressing the necessity for education and policy implementation ends up positioning women as targets of protection, and even further strengthens the demand for victim-likeness. The logic still at work is that the purpose of preventing sexual violence is to prevent women, the weak, from falling victim and that sexual abuse should be prevented because the victimized women’s lives become devastated. This approach results in criticizing a victim when there appears a victim who is “not like a victim,” and in the tendency of even further forcing the victim to prove her victimization.

 

2) Emphasize the individualized responsibility for prevention and obscure the issue of power

As the past sexual violence prevention education centered on ‘not becoming a victim’ is criticized as mass-producing ‘victim blaming,’ ‘actively confronting’ and ‘not becoming an offender’ constitute an important content of recent education. When faced with a victimizing situation, it is necessary to actively confronting the situation and raise issues after the situation is over. However, this approach has the aspect of individualizing responsibility for victimization in that it still calls for women to keep themselves from violence and respond to the situation for themselves. Emphasizing the victim’s confronting ability is to shift the responsibilities for preventing sexual violence on the victim and to obscure the issues of structure and power that cause the victimization of sexual violence.

 

Although it is stressed that women should take the duty of preventing sexual violence as equal citizens, the way of imposing responsibility still relies on patriarchal power. The way of stating the duty to prevent violation still tends to position women as beings subject to individual men as fathers or husbands, not as citizens equal to men. Men are the protectors while women are the protected. Responsibilities of male-centered prevention may lead to the direction of reinforcing the patriarchal order and power structure that give rise to sexual violence.

 

3) Control women according to the safety centered on the improvement of physical space

 

In the mid-2000s, Crime Prevention through Environmental Design was introduced, which accordingly raised interest in crime prevention through improvement of physical space and environment. Community-centered spatial improvement projects have since expanded, and safety projects for women are being actively implemented in the context of women-friendly city projects. Reconstruction of space through a gender-responsive approach aims to resolve gender inequality that is reproduced through space, and safety policies set the prevention and elimination of gender-based violence as their goal.

 

Safety policies centered on the improvement of physical space in the community are implemented in the name of security policies. These policies tend to be implemented regardless of whether they have any practical effect on eradicating gender-based violence. As most community projects aim at satisfying female residents in the community, the implementation is largely centered on projects that can show tangible performance. Also, as there appear cases of emulating projects that are highly evaluated among the projects implemented by other local governments, it is hard to say that the projects are implemented with the practical effect of preventing violence as their goal.

 

Community safety projects centered on the improvement of physical space bring the effect of stigmatizing a particular space and confining women to a particular space, and result in increasing the hazards of unidentified spaces. In the community safety projects, selection of spaces is centered on crime statistics. Although crime statistics provide important basic data, spaces where unidentifiable crimes by the statistics or other crimes occur cannot become the targets of prevention. Also, implementation of safety projects centered on crime-occurring space and construction of a safe space create a new rule that women should lead their lives and do activities chiefly in the safe space. This rule is likely to blame women for falling victim to crimes when they led their lives and did activities in an unsafe space.

 

2. Contexts of Protection Discourses

 

1) Definition-centered education and lack of understanding gender-based violence

 

Sexual violence prevention education may put women’s vulnerability into spotlight and lead to reproduce the common idea of victim-likeness, because of its excessive preoccupation with the definition of violence. The prevention education tends to concentrate on the concept of sexual violence because it is believed that one should understand what is sexual violence in order to prevent sexual violence. Sexual violence does not take place because victims do not understand its concept, but when concept-centered education is conducted in spite of that, it is likely to strengthen the stereotype of victims, victim-likeness, and objectification of victims.

 

The lack of understanding gender-based violence comes from the lack of understanding ‘gender’ and ‘power.’ Gender-based violence tends to be explained in the manner of understanding gender simply as men and women, at times highlighting male victimization.

 

Even when the issue of power is addressed, only the power exercised in general violence is discussed without revealing the contexts in which gender power is at work and the points where gender crosses over.

 

2) ‘Fairness’ discourse and response to backlashes

With a recent emphasis placed on ‘fairness,’ backlashes from men deepened against gender equality, gender discrimination, and sexual violence. As the interviewees experienced backlashes and resistance to sexual violence prevention policies and gender equality policies in the field, they came to stress the seriousness of sexual violence in response to the backlashes. In this reality, the gravity of sexual violence is even more highlighted to emphasize the importance of the prevention of sexual violence. To continue education while reducing the backlashes and resistance from men, extreme cases are taken for examples or negotiations are made by presenting cases of male victimization to be ‘fair.’

 

 

 

 

Such backlashes and demand for fairness seen in the field of sexual violence prevention education also appear in community safety policies. A logic is presented that the benefits from safety policies should be awarded exactly ‘half and half’ to both women and men under the concept of mechanical gender equality. As a consequence, the word ‘women’ is deleted from project or policy names in order to highlight women’s vulnerability even further or to prove the ‘half and half’ equality.

 

3) Reaction to education centered on schematized prohibition

Concept-centered prevention education on sexual violence and individualized responsibility for prevention are related to the stronger punishment of perpetrators and support for victims. As education participants tangibly affirm the punishment of sexual violence crimes, they take greater interest in the penalty level or standards for the punishment of sexual violence rather than in the causes and structures for the occurrence of sexual violence. As a result, participants in sexual violence prevention education are more interested in confirming the level and type of behavior that prevents them from being convicted or punished as offenders.

 

The fear of punishment even further stirs up the need for concept- or case-centered education. In the prevention education on sexual violence, it is not easy to convey the meaning of gender-based violence, and instructors encounter more often than not backlashes from education participants regarding the type of crimes and level of punishment. It was found that there were different stances toward the appropriateness of the punishment. Explaining the criteria for deciding the appropriateness in connection with the seriousness of sexual violence victimization and the pain of victims eventually solidified the notion of victim-likeness and strengthened the screening of victims.

 

3. Directions for Improving Sexual Violence Prevention Policies

 

1) Reinforce sexual violence prevention education from the perspective of gender equality

 

As education is important in the prevention of sexual violence, an emphasis should also be on educational content and approach. The prevention education from the perspective of gender equality rejects the reinforced protectionist perspective as an educational effect, but instead fosters the strength of educators to respond to dynamics taking place in the field of sexual violence prevention education. In a situation where educational programs for instructors of sexual violence prevention education are diversified, more opportunities should be given for individual instructors to complete sexual violence prevention education from the perspective of gender equality.

 

A foundation should be laid for implementing community projects from the perspective of gender equality. As there are diverse implementers of safety projects in the community, it is necessary to provide opportunities for them to implement the projects or polices from the perspective of gender equality. It is also necessary to expand gender equality education for project implementers and participants as well as projects to support the education.

 

2) Emphasize communal responsibilities for prevention Sexual violence can be prevented through intervention in the power structure and culture that cause the occurrence of sexual violence. It is necessary for the whole community to make active efforts to change unequal gender structure and culture. In recent cases, community restoration projects and gender equality awareness projects were implemented in connection with each other among village-centered safety projects. In light of these cases, active efforts should be made to change the structure and culture, beginning from the community.

 

Instead of holding individuals responsible for falling victim to sexual violence or for the prevention of sexual violence, an emphasis should be on the responsibilities of the community. Plans should be made to enable all members of the community to become responsible individuals for the problems of violence and to actively intervene in preventing violence and solving problems rather than merely trying not to become victims or offenders.

 

3) Implement sexual violence prevention policies as a part of gender equality policies

Sexual violence is caused by gender discriminative structure, culture, and power, and it is closely related to gender discriminative belief or sexism. When violence against women arises from women’s low social and economic standings, it is inevitable to change unequal political, economic, social structures, and culture in order to prevent violence. The recently publicized sexual violence cases in Korean society also demonstrate that the causes for sexual violence are its gender discriminative labor market and structure.

 

Sexual violence prevention policies should be implemented in connection with gender equality policies to change gender discriminative structure. It is possible to achieve practical effects of sexual violence prevention policies when efforts are made to change the structure and reality that cause gender discrimination. From this perspective, sexual violence policies should actively intervene in the issues of discrimination, and be formulated and implemented in the context of gender equality policies.

 

4. Sub-Conclusions

According to the recent increase in sexual violence cases, deepened seriousness of the cases, and public opinions about sexual violence cases, there have been more policies on sexual violence, including sexual violence prevention policies. Despite the importance of the design of the policies and the capacity of execution, the effectiveness of sexual violence policies can be secured through integration with the gender equality perspective and connection with gender equality policies.

 

Therefore, policies on sexual violence, including sexual violence prevention policies, should be approached from the standpoint of realizing gender equality. In sexual violence policies, it is necessary to clarify that sexual violence is related to gender discrimination and equality. Although it is important to solve the cases, it is necessary to actively raise the issue of power that causes gender-based violence. It is also necessary to reveal how ‘gender’ intersects with other identities and to break away from the dichotomous frame of women and men.

 

V. Directions and Implications of Overseas Prevention Policies on Gender-Based Violence

 

1. Policies of International Organizations to Combat Gender-Based Violence

 

1) UN Women’s Guidelines for the Establishment of National Action Plan (NAP) for the Prevention and Elimination of Violence against Women

 

UN Women published Guidelines for the Establishment of the National Action Plan (NAP, for short) for the Prevention and Elimination of Violence against Women in 2012, and presented principles for preventing violence against women. First, approach violence against women from the viewpoint of human rights. Second, look at violence against women as a form of gender discrimination that has historically existed between men and women. Third, recognize and encompass violence against women that occurs in a multi-layered and intersectional way. Fourth, take note of fundamental causes, attributes, and effects of violence against women. Fifth, understand discrimination and disadvantages against women that appear in various forms.

 

UN Women’s primary prevention strategy takes an important position in the model for the NAP, because the strategy aims to end violence against women prior to its occurrence by resolving fundamental causes for violence against women. The NAP presents a strategy of changing social and cultural norms, a strategy by major environment, a strategy by specific group, and a strategy on the factors influencing violence against women as core elements of the primary prevention. The NAP also presents specific means for each element.

 

2) WHO RESPECT women

With the problem awareness that it is essential to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls in order to attain the goal of prosperity of humankind, WHO, UN Women, and 11 international organizations jointly announced the international framework “RESPECT women: Preventing violence against women” to prevent the occurrence and recurrence of violence against women in May 2019.

 

As a strategy that focuses on the primary prevention to block the occurrence of violence in advance by reducing the multi-layered risk factors and increasing protection factors of violence against women, the RESPECT women framework presents seven essential strategies for preventing violence against women as shown in the table.

 

<Table Ⅴ-1> RESPECT women’s seven strategies

Category Main content

R • Relationships skills strengthened

E • Empowerment of women S • Services ensured

P • Poverty reduced

E • Environments made safe

C • Child and adolescent abuse prevented

T • Transformed attitudes, beliefs and norms

 

The strategies of the RESPECT women framework can be effective when they are suitably used in the context of each country. Also, the framework suggests that the goal of preventing violence against women can be achieved when the strategies are operated in an integrated manner rather than in a separate way.

 

2. Overseas Cases

 

1) The United Kingdom

The coalition government announced a report in November 2010 that contained its vision and basic principles for eliminating violence against women and girls “Call to End Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG)” in November 2010. This report takes an approach that includes girls based on the definition of violence against women as stated in the 1993 UN Declaration of the Elimination of Violence against Women. Its vision is “to achieve a society in which no woman or girl has to live in fear of violence.” Based on the awareness of the problem that existing approaches to the prevention of violence against women are top-down and centralized, the VAWG strategy divides the roles of the central government and the communities: while the central government performs the role of presenting the overall direction, providing financial support, and building cooperative systems, the communities take the lead in specific practices, including victim support, considering the situation of the communities. The effective prevention of violence against women and girls has an important position in the VAWG strategy. The strategy presented for the prevention of violence includes: first, prevent through changes in attitude, behavior, and practices that maintain violence against women. Second, prevent through early intervention in children who may accept violent behavior as normal due to their exposure to violence. Third, prevent through proper and right response to gender-based violence by front-line workers, including the police.

 

In 2015, the government published a report that reviewed the achievements of the VAWG strategy over the past five years, and in March 2016 announced a new policy report on the VAWG strategy “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy: 2016 to 2020.” The comprehensive outcomes to be achieved by 2020 consist of two axes: reducing all forms of violence against women and girls and increasing the report, indictment, and conviction of hidden violence against women. While maintaining the existing vision and main principles, the 2016 – 2020 VAWG strategy presents its contents and methods more richly than before. The strategy constitutes its major principles largely in four areas: preventing violence, supporting victims, forming cooperative relations between organizations, and tracking and prosecuting perpetrators. Because prevention and early intervention are directly related to reduction in the number of women situated at a “crisis point,” they have importance at a level different from response to violence after it occurs. The prevention-related contents of the 2016 – 2020 VAWG strategy include education of children and adolescents on healthy relationships and operation of related campaigns. In addition, the strategy presents prevention strategies, including response to gender-based violence committed in the online spaces, prevention of harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation and forced marriage, prompt recognition of violence against women and girls and early intervention, intervention in offenders focusing on changes in the violent behavior of offenders, establishment of database for evidence and international practice strategy that can measure practical effects of the prevention strategies.

 

2) Scotland

Scotland adopted its strategy “Equally Safe: Scotland’s strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls” in June 2014, with a goal to prevent and eliminate violence against women. Based on the problem awareness that violence against women originating from deep-rooted inequality against women violates the principle of “the country of equality” pursued by Scotland, this strategy aims to promote the eradication of violence against women and girls. Although the strategy focuses on violence against women and girls perpetrated by men, it also takes note of the fact that men too can be victims of gender-based violence and stresses men’s role in changing unequal gender relations.

 

The vision of the “Equally Safe” strategy is to achieve a country where “all individuals are equally safe and respected, and where women and girls live free from all forms of violence and abuse – and the attitudes that help perpetuate it.” For this vision, the strategy presents four priorities: first, reject all forms of violence and foster equal relationships. Second, respect women and girls as equal citizens. Third, make early interventions effective and important means of prevention. Fourth, have perpetrators receive a robust response and punishment. The “Equally Safe” strategy addresses the prevention of violence as an important issue, and particularly emphasizes primary prevention that prevents violence prior to its occurrence. Primary prevention should be approached from a long-term perspective, and to do so, the strategy presents related polices, including operation of programs focusing on school and workplace. Scotland makes efforts to promote equal safety through implementation of various prevention policies, including equally safe projects in universities, development of a toolkit that provides data and tools to prevent gender-based violence, development of equally safe projects in the workplace and pilot implementation of the projects, and mentoring programs to prevent violence in schools.

 

3) Australia

Based on the need to establish a mid- to long-term plan to prevent violence against women through cooperation among the central government, communities, and individuals, Australia developed its “National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022.” Australia’s National Plan is a long-term 12-year plan consisting of national action plans that are implemented four times every three years. Its fourth action plan (2019–2022) is currently being implemented. The overall vision of the National Plan is “Australian women and their children live free from violence in safe communities.” The objectives of the National Plan by period are set to promote the gradual achievement of the vision as they develop with the passage of each step. The objectives and priorities of the national action plan by period are shown in the table.

 

<Table Ⅴ-2> Objectives and priorities of Australia’s national action plans:

2010 – 2022

Period Objectives

1 st (2010~2013) Building a Strong Foundation

2 nd (2013~2016) Moving Ahead

3 rd (2016~2019) Promising Results

4 th (2019~2022) Turning the Corner

 

Australia’s National Plan to respond to violence against women has stressed the importance of prevention of violence, particularly primary prevention throughout all the periods. Based on the international research result that the primary prevention strategy deployed at various levels in diverse environments is the most effective for the prevention and eradication of violence against women, the National Plan has placed an emphasis on the prevention of violence in advance by forming respectful relationships and enhancing gender equality from a long-term perspective as well as on perpetrators’ responsibilities for violence and behavioral changes.

 

The tools and methods of implementing the preventive strategies by period developed gradually and incrementally with the passage of each period. In the first period (2010 – 20130, the national action plan presented action tasks to strengthen the competency of primary prevention. In the second period (2013 – 2016), the national action plan further developed the tasks that had been implemented in the first period, and identified new action tasks. In the third period (2016 – 2019), the action plan expanded preventive strategies to include early interventions against violence. In the fourth period (2019–2022), the action plan reiterated the importance of prevention prior to the occurrence of violence, sought to maximize the effect of cooperation-based prevention, and implemented primary prevention activity considering the characteristics of the communities. In particular, “respectful relationships education” - which has been conducted and developed throughout all periods of Australia’s National Plan - is the outcome of the country’s long-term effort to respond to gender-based violence. Respectful relationships education aims to comprehensively address causes for gender-based violence and to promote changes in generations and culture centered on schools in order to create a future free from violence. The education consists of the following seven core elements.

 

<Table Ⅴ-3> Core elements of respectful relationships education

Core elements

• Identify drivers for gender-based violence

• Vision, approach, and financial support from a long-term perspective • Adopt approach targeting the whole school • Build a system for collaboration and joint effort • Ensure integrative assessment and constant improvement • Provide resources and support for teachers

• Use age-appropriate, interactive, and participatory curriculum

 

3. Sub-Conclusions

Based on the review of overseas cases, this research developed implications for establishing the direction of Korea’s policies on gender-based violence as follows:

 

First, it is necessary to make it clear that the issue of gender-based violence should be approached from the standpoint of equality and human rights. Since the UN Declaration of the Elimination of Violence against Women in 1993, the term ‘gender-based violence’ has been widely used. International conventions and frameworks have also been presented to conceptualize gender-based violence as violation against human rights and discrimination against women and also to prevent and solve gender-based violence. Considering this trend in the international community, Korea should set directions for its gender-based violence policies by regarding gender-based violence as violation of human rights and discrimination against women and approaching the issue from the perspective of human rights and equality.

 

Second, an in-depth study is called for regarding the concept of gender and the way gender is understood. Understanding gender as a narrow and personal attribute of sex contributes to reinforcing the existing gender order that generates and sustains gender-based violence by making them unaware of the dynamics of social order, structure, and practices that place women in unequal power relations and maintain such relations. This way of understanding mistakes protection of a specific group of people who are ‘biologically’ vulnerable to violence for one of major approaches to the prevention of gender-based violence. And it is in contrast to the approach to gender-based violence policies from the viewpoint of equality and human rights. Based on the in-depth study of the concept of gender, sufficient discussions should be conducted and a social consensus achieved concerning the meaning of ‘gender-based violence against women’ and the way it is understood.

 

Third, gender-based violence prevention policies need to be prepared from integrative, comprehensive, and long-term perspectives. In the international response to gender-based violence, the importance of prevention policies, which prevent violence before it arises, has gradually increased. Prevention of gender-based violence is not possible with efforts of particular individuals or organizations alone, but it requires changes of individuals and the whole society as well. In this regard, prevention policies should be explored that promote changes of individuals and society from integrative, comprehensive, and long-term perspectives.

 

Fourth, it is necessary to give deep consideration to the roles of the State and communities as the main agents of performing integrative roles in response to gender-based violence. According to the analysis of overseas cases by country, the governments of the countries established mid- to long-term plans with awareness that they should encourage changes in all the sectors of their society over a long-term period to eradicate gender-based violence. They also considered responsibilities of the State important as the main agent of formulating and implementing integrative and long-term policies. While the roles of local governments and communities were expanded, the roles of the central government that provided financial and systemic support for them stood out. Based on these overseas cases, discussion should be made on the proper division of roles and responsibilities among the central government, local governments, and the communities.

 

Lastly, attention should be paid to the importance and effects of gender education. In the specific cases related to the prevention of gender-based violence, importance was attached to gender equality education in school for children and adolescents, respectful relationships education, and empowerment education.

 

Children and adolescents grow while learning the attitude of individuals toward life, and their awareness and relational skills. Also, school space has importance as the central space of their school life and at the same time as the center of their communities. Therefore, it is necessary to take closer note of the importance of school in acquiring sensitivity to violence and awareness of interactive and respectful relations, and learning such skills.

 

Ⅵ. Conclusions and Policy Directions

 

1. Shift Directions of Prevention Policies on Gender-Based Violence

 

1) Raise the issue of dailiness of gender-based violence Prevention policies on gender-based violence should be based on the comprehensive concept of gender-based violence that encompasses not only physical and sexual violence against women recognized as ‘crime’ by the State but also any act of violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological, or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. When gender-based violence is understood in a narrow sense as violence to be punished, the dailiness of gender-based violence is not shed light on. As a result, mentioning gender discrimination or gender norms in prevention education may not be associated with violence but be removed from it. Also, this makes it difficult to address broader structural issues and instead remains controlling individuals’ perceptions or behaviors.

 

2) Aim at socio-structural changes in the gender-based violence prevention policies

 

In the prevention of gender-based violence, the feminist model is significant for pointing out that gender-based violence is related to structural discrimination, such as limiting access to or participation in social, political, or economic resources. Although cultural changes including changes of perceptions and norms are important, culture creates an environment that makes gender-based violence possible and easy when connected with structural inequality. For this reason, gender-based violence policies should challenge not only social and cultural bases but also structural foundation.

 

3) Reflect intersectionality in the gender-based violence prevention policies

 

The approach of taking only gender into consideration in gender-based violence policies and supposing only ‘biological women’ as gender under the dichotomous notion of gender makes it impossible to understand experiences of falling victim to gender-based violence and to respond to various needs, because such approach supposes ‘women’ as a homogeneous group and assumes that they would experience the victimization of gender-based violence in an identical way. If people’s identities intersect with gender in a complex manner and generate unique discrimination and violence, then it is required in gender-based violence prevention policies as well to conduct research and develop response policies considering the violence generated by interaction between various identities and gender rather than to remain preoccupied with the supposition that ‘women’ would have a homogeneous experience.

 

2. Improve Prevention Education on Gender-Based Violence

 

1) Universalize prevention education on gender-based violence

 

It should be stressed that instructors with expertise should conduct education, and also prevention education on gender-based violence be generalized and universalized. In particular, in schools, equality education including the prevention of gender-based violence should be incorporated in the overall curriculum, and all teachers should be provided with support to possess the competency of conducting equality education and gender-based violence prevention education. In everyday school life as well, gender-based violence should be prevented.

 

2) Improve training of educators for violence prevention education

 

Educators who conduct gender-based violence prevention education and participants in education have their own viewpoints on gender and gender-based violence and theoretical backgrounds. Given this, the focus of education should shift from delivering knowledge to giving opportunities for critical thinking. Educators should be trained to be able to consider dynamics of participants and take proper response, and it should be promoted to develop and share methodology.

 

3) Expand approach to bystanders’ behavioral facilitation

In the prevention of gender-based violence, facilitation of bystanders’ behavior places responsibilities for preventing and intervening against gender-based violence on all the members of the community, instead of approaching men as potential offenders and women as latent victims. In addition to the need for socio-structural changes, it is also necessary to clarify the significance and limitations of the approach to bystanders and to expand education that encourages individuals as bystanders to challenge gender norms that enable gender-based violence.

 

3. Promote non-state actors’ participation

Cooperation with civil society and researchers that hold fast to gender perspective can alleviate the State and state-actors’ patriarchal notions of gender and help establish directions for pursuing gender equality rather than benevolent patriarchy. As such, in formulating and implementing policies on gender-based violence, it is necessary to form organizations in such a way to promote active intervention of actors outside the State from the gender-responsive perspective and make the structure in such a way that policy-makers and implementers can actively listen to and accept opinions of civil society.

 

4. Amend the Framework Act on the Prevention of Violence Against Women

 

The legislative intent of the Framework Act on the Prevention of Violence Against Women is to have an integrative approach to ‘violence against women’ as a form of ‘gender-based violence.’ To correspond to the intent, it is necessary to clarify the ideology and purpose of equality and anti-discrimination that were blurred in the process of discussing the bill. Also, by revising the definition of ‘violence against women,’ it should be confirmed that gender-based violence does not simply mean violence ‘against women’ alone. In addition. provisions on prevention education should be improved so that violence prevention education can focus on the fact that gender-based violence originates from the dichotomous gender hierarchy, and occurs or aggravates due to intersectional identities.

 

Research areas: gender violence and safety, laws and plans, culture and awareness of gender equality, women-friendly city

Key words: gender violence, violence against women, sexual violence, violence prevention policy, violence prevention education