South Korean Teachers Deserve Support

By: Apal Upadhyaya

Teachers in South Korea have been protesting for months following the death of a 23-year-old teacher who was driven to suicide in her own classroom by parent harassment and bullying. Teachers and supporters are calling for a revision in the country’s ambiguous Child Welfare Act aimed at preventing child abuse. Parents nationwide have used the legislation to file lawsuits against teachers who punish misbehavior in the classroom or refuse to favor students. Even if the teacher is falsely accused, they can still be punished and even barred from teaching. Teachers nationwide have reported devastating mental health impacts as a result of abuse and harassment by parents. 

In South Korea, teachers have suffered far too long and the government must act to protect teachers from future bullying and harassment. While the government has passed the Teacher Rights Restoration Bill, they need to take further steps to protect teachers from the increasingly predatory actions of parents. The only solution is to redefine the ambiguous clause in the Child Welfare Act. Furthermore, the suffering of teachers in South Korea is the result of the country’s competitive education system which places immense pressure on not only students, but also teachers. As such, comprehensive reform is required to address the underlying impacts of South Korea’s current education system. 

The Child Welfare Act, passed in 2014, aims to protect children from child abuse. The act was created in response to the death of a 7-year-old girl after facing severe physical and mental abuse from both her stepmother and father and thus allows people to report suspicions of child abuse in good faith for the health and safety of the child. However, it is this feature of the act that is being weaponized by parents to harass teachers. Parents have used the ambiguity of reporting suspicions of child abuse in ‘good faith’ to threaten teachers with lawsuits, investigations, and even arrests. South Korean educators and the Korean Federation of Teachers’ Union acknowledge that while the new Teacher Rights Restoration Bill, which prevents unfounded suspension of teachers and prevents principals from downplaying violations of their rights, is a good first step, more has to be done to protect teachers. Korean educators are concerned that the new bill does not penalize parents who falsely accuse teachers of abuse. Thus, schoolteachers should be protected by law from parents who seek to harm them. The only solution that has the ability to appropriately protect teachers is to amend the Child Welfare Act itself. 

As a result of the protests, many have called for South Korea to evaluate its education system. South Korea’s education system is notoriously competitive and it is built into the culture. In South Korea, children in secondary school are pushed to attend hagwons, or academies, after school, and in preparation for college entrance exams, these students study for upwards of 16 hours a day. However, more often than not, the pursuit of achievement and good grades is spearheaded not by students, but by their families. There is a belief that parents alone direct the futures of their children, pressuring students to achieve their idea of success from a young age. This pressure to succeed has caused conflict between parents and teachers, as parents have the ability to threaten teachers with lawsuits or arrests in order to give their children an edge in the classroom. However, it is this type of threat that is worsening the mental health of teachers in the country. 

The time for education reform in South Korea is now. Teachers cannot be expected to deal with the mental pressures of dealing with the families of students for the foreseeable future. With the passage of the Teacher Rights Restoration Bill, the country is moving towards the right path to protect teachers. However, more must be done to dismantle the means that have allowed teachers to be harassed and bullied for almost a decade. The country needs to be reminded that teachers are people too and that the pressures to succeed impact everyone in the classroom, not just students.  Students can still succeed without resorting to means of coercion and threats that parents have employed against teachers. The South Korean government must act promptly to thoroughly protect their teachers. 

The Power of Femininity: Why More Countries Need Female Leaders

By: Pratha Purushottam

Just over 20 of the world’s 193 countries currently have women as their heads of state. According to UN Women, gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years at the current rate. Yet, in recent years, women like Jacinda Acern and Angela Merkel have been universally applauded for their leadership, embodying what it means to be a politician for the people. The consensus shows that women tend to perform better than men in positions of power, especially during times of crisis. Such bleak underrepresentation of women in positions of power thus signals troubling consequences. 

Gender-equal governments are more inclusive and give a voice to all their citizens. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, South Africa’s first female deputy president and the former executive director for UN Women, stated that, in gender-balanced governments “you reduce the likelihood of missing out on the needs of some people because you just have never walked in their shoes.” Women bring fresh perspectives, and as a result, gender-balanced governments make better decisions because they are more representative of the people they serve. Looking at the status of women’s rights in countries with male-dominated governments, this holds true. For example, Daniel Ortega has occupied the presidential seat in Nicaragua since 2007, pushing his conservative Catholic ideals and diminishing the position of women in society for years. His government has revoked the legal status of multiple NGOs opposing Nicaragua’s abuse of women’s rights. In addition, Ortega’s refusal to adequately fund comisarías, special police stations run by women for women and designed specifically to address gender-based violence, led to nationwide shutdowns in their operations. A female leader would likely recognize the importance of such issues and therefore prevent the oppression of half the country’s population. 

The COVID-19 pandemic evened the playing field of politics as the entire world faced the same crisis. From the beginning, it was clear that regardless of size or location, countries with female leadership—examples being Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, and Slovakia—tackled the pandemic relatively well. The women heading these nations “were proactive in responding to the threat of the virus, implementing social distancing restrictions early, seeking expert advice to inform health strategies and unifying the country around a comprehensive response with transparent and compassionate communication.” A study even found that female leaders acted faster and more decisively to reduce mortality rates in response to the spread of the virus because they prioritized saving lives over maintaining economic stability—something their male counterparts failed to do. Such empathy and decisiveness ensured significantly lower mortality rates from COVID.

Women are deterred from entering politics for several reasons. Political parties generally do not support female candidates because of their perceived electoral risk, inducing a self-reinforcing cycle of exclusion. Introducing quota systems for female representation in government is one way to solve this problem. Women also face significant violence in politics, scaring many away from government positions. Four in five women parliamentarians have experienced psychological violence linked to their job, one in four physical violence, and one in five sexual violence. Governments around the globe should criminalize such acts, and social media companies should take greater initiative to tackle cyber-abuse, especially body-shaming and sexual innuendo, both of which are often targeted towards women in politics. 

Currently, women win elections, but at an incredibly slow rate. Making a concerted effort to elect more female politicians not only ensures better representation, but introduces new perspectives into a heavily male-dominated sector. Women’s proven leadership skills compared to men in the midst of crisis make them invaluable. In addition, introducing more women into positions of power would likely decrease the gender pay gap. Both voters and governments across the world need to work together to mitigate the dominant hold men possess over positions of leadership. If not, it will be over a century before we see equality. As the world continues to grow and shift towards a more globalized and modern future, women must not be left behind, but rather placed at the forefront of change.

The Cards Were Already on the Table: What the West told Putin about their Commitment to Democratic Freedom

By: Anna Grace Calhoun

As Russian artillery shells indiscriminately destroy Ukrainian cities, the Western response has been swift and sweeping, featuring extensive sanctions designed to sever Russia from the global economy. Pointing to Ukrainian heroism and the unified condemnation of NATO and the U.S., many Western figures have asked with indignation: How did Putin think he could get away with this? In their narrative, Putin gravely miscalculated; he committed an egregious assault on human rights, democracy, and state sovereignty, and he solidified his nation’s destiny of becoming a pariah. However, the recent past reveals the West has been apathetic when it comes to Russian aggression against non-strategically valuable states. The future is impossible to predict, but it is entirely plausible that Putin will walk away having achieved at least some of his goals, such as Ukrainian neutrality. Even in outcomes less favorable to Putin, his downfall is less likely to be brought on by Western rescue than by wild card factors, such as a Ukrainian insurgency. As such, perhaps Western societies overestimated the credibility of their claim to being decisive defenders of democracy. The West must seek to re-evaluate themselves honestly; otherwise, they will never understand the calculus which guides Putin-like figures. 

Perhaps scarred by the Bush era’s overreach and failures in nation-building, the past three U.S. presidents have pursued a foriegn policy that rhetorically emphasizes democratic values and alliance but commits primarily “democratic support” insofar as it serves direct security concerns. This policy has left Russian international assaults on human rights largely unchallenged. Though the West is pointing to the displacement of 6.5 million Ukranians as a motivator for their action against the Russian invasion, it has never given the same attention to Moscow’s backing of the Assad regime, whose civil/proxy war has displaced over 13.5 million Syrians. The Syrian government carried out 32 confirmed chemical attacks and stands accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and “other international crimes, including genocide” by the UN Human Rights Council. Yet, even following Obama’s 2012 “red line” declaration, the West has made no dedicated effort to stand with Syrians in the way it has rallied against potential war crimes in Ukraine. In fact, the same EU countries now welcoming Ukrainian refugees aggressively turned away Syrian refugees, even using them as political pawns in manufactured border crises. What about this response demonstrates to Putin that the West has a genuine, principled devotion to upholding human rights internationally? 

Other Western values asserted in opposition to the invasion include protection of state sovereignty and democratic governance. However, the strength of these commitments are questionable in the wake of Kremlin influence on the most recent Belrusian election. After the fraudulent reelection of current Belarusian President Lukashenko, the leader faced widespread protests, which he met with intense militia crackdowns. His regime then secured further Russian backing, with the KGB forcing his former electoral opponent Tsikhanouskaya to emigrate to Lithuania. This dictator, who kidnapped dissidents and brutalized protestors, solidified his rule in 2020 by enlisting Russian aid in crushing democratic electoral results and uprisings--and his abuses hardly made headlines. Where was the West’s commitment to bolstering democracy in Minsk? The choice to turn a blind eye now exacts an acute cost, with Belarus serving as a key launching ground for Russian missiles and as a potential military reinforcer. Interference with the Belerusian election is just one example among numerous Russian violations of state sovereignty: the annexation of Crimea in 2014, active perpetuation of frozen conflicts in Moldova, Georgia, and Armenia/Azerbaijan, and interference in a U.S. election. Again, the West formed no cohesive and consistent resistance against such assaults on democratic sovereignty. 

Despite the emphasis on the moral imperative to support Ukrainians’ freedom against an enemy committed to evil, Putin’s success in continuing operations to undermine both individual and state freedoms may have taught him a lesson the West has yet to learn: regardless of language suggesting otherwise, human rights and democratic principles unfortunately take a backseat in foreign policy. Biden’s botched statement about disagreements concerning whether to respond to a “minor incursion” only confirmed that security and economic factors exert far more leverage over policy than principles-based ones. So, on balance of interests alone, this invasion is better characterized as a risky bet than as a blind miscalculation, considering the enormous strategic importance of Ukraine to Russia and its murkier concrete value to the West. Putin’s regime predicted and presumably calculated sanctions to be an absorbable cost. Weak Western resolve to defend democracy makes Putin’s expectations about limitations on Western pushback understandable, even if they prove to be incorrect. The West must reckon with the reality that its limited affirmation of fundamental rights internationally may be an authoritarian-emboldening strategic weakness.