On May 24, a female lieutenant of the South Korean Navy , equivalent to a captain , hanged herself on suspicion of being attacked by a superior after being violently attacked. The male colonel officer has now been arrested. The incident once again sparked a great discussion in South Korea about harassment in the military and violent attacks on female soldiers.
The male officer involved in the case admitted to having intimate acts with the deceased, but denied that the violations had occurred. The South Korean military has not yet released the personal data of the dead and suspects. The female naval officer involved did not return to her post after taking a leave of absence and was eventually found hanging in her home. She left behind a suicide note that read, "Tomorrow I will not be in this world again."
In 2008, the South Korean Navy had already broken the scandal that female adjutants reported being raped multiple times by three colleagues. The female officer also attempted suicide, and the military was accused by the media of trying to conceal the truth of the incident.
South Korean organizations concerned about the incident said it was a classic example of abuses by male superiors in the South Korean military abusing female subordinates, and although the government has stepped up efforts to crack down on similar incidents, it has not been able to stop the scandals of men and women within the military. Last year, an official South Korean investigation found that 111 female servicemen had been raped by their superiors in the past five years.
South Korea's first female soldiers, officially entered the service in 1948, with a total of thirty-two female officers. At that time, the recruitment criteria were unmarried women aged eighteen to twenty-five, with a secondary school (six-year) degree, and after training, the rank of lieutenant was awarded.
In 1997, the Korean Air Force Officer School was the first to accept female applications. In 2002, the school's first female Air Force pilots entered service. Among the nearly 2,000 pilots of the South Korean Air Force, the number of female pilots is more than 20, covering fighter jets, transport aircraft, helicopters and other aircraft.
Female Officers of the South Korean Navy wear white formal attire and female Marine Corps officers wear green formal attire. The first batch of 20 female officers of the South Korean Navy and Marine Corps graduated in 2008.
Female officers of the Rokk Navy participated in exchanges with the Chinese Navy. There is a legend in the South Korean female soldiers: Warrant Officer Kang Myung-sook, who has worked in the Army's elite Special Warfare Command for more than 20 years , said that Warrant Officer Kang served the most elite 707 Brigade, and she set a record of 4,002 parachutes for female soldiers.
Myo Man's Korean female officers have made a splash at foreign affairs events – and many Korean women have also begun to perform very special tasks, such as mine clearance. Corporal Kim Ji-young, a member of the Army's Second Quartermaster Support Command, participated for the first time as a female soldier in the task of clearing mines in the areas of Ryocheon and Tetsuwon and Goseong in Gyeonggi Province.
Korean film and television works have also begun to appear more and more female military figures. In 2002, South Korea produced the first female fighter pilots in history. The enrolment ratio for the year was 22:1. In the competition, three women stood out: Park Ji-yan, Park Ji-won and Lieutenant Kata Paula were admitted to the Air Force Officer School.
Five years later, on November 22, 2007, Captain Ho Jung-mi, who came down from the flight training ground of the 20th Combat Regiment of the Air Force in Seosan City, Chungcheongnam-do, wrote a new page in the history of the Rokka Air Force. In 2002, Captain Ho was awarded the rank of second lieutenant in the Air Force, and five years later she became the first female pilot in South Korea to fly a KF-16 fighter jet.
Female soldiers are also beauty lovers – in 2006, on the 54th anniversary of the founding of the Marine Corps, known as the "Devil's Nemesis", a female Marine Corps soldier became the first female company commander of the combat unit: Captain Jin Runtian, commander of the Headquarters of the First Division and the Second Regiment of the Marine Corps.
In 2001, Captain Kim Young-tin became the first female marine officer, causing a media sensation at the time. When she was a company commander in the Marine Corps, the child was only seventeen months old. Jin Runtian had to lead the training team, but also to take care of her husband, who was also a soldier, running between the three roles of mother, officer and wife.
The first female servicemen in South Korean history have had senior state officials: Ms. Kim Hyun-sook, who was one of the first female servicemen at the time, later became the first female military chief, education captain, and second district captain, and eventually served as the minister of health and social affairs and a member of parliament.
For more than 50 years, the Korean Women's Military School has trained more than 1,500 female officers and nearly 7,000 female officers, making it the cradle of Korean female soldiers. However, if the problem of scandals and violent incidents within the military is not solved, female soldiers will not be able to work and live with peace of mind, which may bring great side effects.