South Korea Cracks Down on Bullying

In the framed photograph behind his father’s desk, the son with the subtle smile looks every bit the confident, intelligent teenager described by his teachers.

“He was a proud kid, maybe too proud to tell his parents about his trouble. His pride killed my son,” said Kim Jong-ki, his head drooping in a deep, long sigh.

Kim’s 16-year-old son, Dae-hyun, leaped from their fifth-floor apartment last year. He landed on a car and incredibly survived--only to drag himself all the way back up and jump again to his death.

Dae-hyun left a note saying classmates’ bullying made “life too hard for me. I need a break.”

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School violence was long hushed up by school administrators who didn’t want bad publicity. But Kim quit his executive job in a trading company early this year and launched a passionate publicity campaign that has led South Koreans to face the fact that violence is endemic in schools.

Dae-hyun, a star swimmer and well-liked class representative in his middle school, encountered problems when he moved up to a new high school.

There, another boy jumped him without provocation in a hallway. Dae-hyun fought back, and his attacker fled. But the bully came back with friends, and they beat Dae-hyun so viciously that he limped for weeks. After that, they extorted money and forced him to carry their school bags.

Finally, he could take it no more.

Bullying is but one problem--some would say an outgrowth--of South Korea’s make-or-break school system. It’s a system in which rules are strict, pressure to succeed is enormous, and rote-learning for testing is such that school is commonly referred to as “exam hell.”

But bullying has become such a problem that more and more parents are reporting that their children fear going to school. Some have hired bodyguards to escort their youngsters to class. Children are advised to carry whistles. The number of young people enrolled in martial arts classes is reportedly rising.

If the last few months:

* A high schooler fatally stabbed a classmate who extorted money and forced him to run errands.

* Three students were sentenced to up to two years in juvenile jail for burning a classmate with cigarettes and jabbing him with sharp objects. The tormentors said they were just having fun with the victim because he looked “timid” in gym class.

* A band of elementary school students cut off the tip of a victim’s tongue to prevent him from reporting their bullying to his parents.

* A middle school girl was bullied by classmates into giving them $120 a month for two years. When she finally balked, they forced her to drink from a restroom toilet. They told police they picked on her because of her high grades.

In a survey of 2,900 middle and high school students conducted in July by the Seoul Family Court, 50% of the boys and 39% of the girls said they had suffered extortion, beatings and other in-school violence. Sixty-five percent of the victims said they never told parents or teachers.

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Experts say school violence goes unreported because students fear retaliation, don’t want to be called a tattle-tale or sissy by classmates, or believe their parents are either not interested or too busy to care.

Some people blame the bullying on pressure-cooker conditions in the schools. Others lament that traditional values are no longer being taught at home. They also blame TV shows and videos featuring sex, crime and violence.

“Those American videos are the most heinous source of evil viruses,” fumed a grandfather who spoke at a government-sponsored conference on youth violence.

But bullying isn’t the only kind of violence children encounter in South Korean schools. Teachers often beat or cane students for bad grades and disruptive behavior.

“We want to allow as many students as possible to go back to school,” said Sung Young-hoon, a Seoul prosecutor in charge of school violence. “By kicking them out of school, we would be releasing potential criminals on the street.