Emily's broken dreams

After fractured nose, Filipina speaks about abusive Korean husband

This is the fifth part in a year-long series, ``Multiculturalism: The Great Experiment.'' ― ED.

By Kim Rahn

She was bleeding badly with her nose broken and left eye swollen because of another fractured bone after her husband kneed her in the face.

The beating was no private affair but took place on the street, which may have saved Emily from further injuries. A shop owner witnessed the incident and called the police. When Emily arrived at the hospital, she told the police that she wanted to file a complaint. “I want him to go to jail,” she declared.

The ordeal of violence appeared to have ended for Emily, a 31-year-old Filipina who had suffered six months of beatings after marrying her Korean husband.

Emily, who asked that her real name not be used, met her husband in 2006 while working at a bar on an entertainment visa. They dated and then she got pregnant. But he was already in a fake marriage with a Nepalese woman.

She went back to the Philippines when her visa expired and gave birth to a son in 2008. Meanwhile, her future husband was jailed for the fake marriage, but was released two years later. Emily married her son’s father and returned to Korea in 2010.

It took only one month before the husband began beating her and the son. “He beat the boy because the baby cried. He wanted the boy to be manly, no crying. He also beat me because I stopped him from beating the boy,” Emily said.

“He rolled up a wall calendar and beat me and the boy on every part of our bodies. My son couldn’t even sit down because he had bruises on the buttocks,” she said.

As the husband did not have a regular job with a stable income, Emily resumed working at a bar. One night after working at the bar, she wanted to go home but her husband insisted they drink with his friends. She refused and they fought, ending with his physical assaulting her on the street.

The husband was jailed and they divorced. However, with a young son and without money and a place to live, Emily returned to her ex-husband.

She got pregnant again, and the beatings began again. Five months pregnant, she finally left him for good. Emily has stayed at shelters for immigrant women, and gave birth to a second son in March.

Her story is one of the many domestic violence cases being reported between Korean men and their foreign spouses.

A 2010 survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family revealed that 69 percent of immigrant wives experienced some form of abuse, either physical, mental or sexual abuse, or were subject to unreasonable control over their daily activities or spending. The physical abuse often occurs under the influence of alcohol.

Kim, 48, an ethnic Korean-Chinese, came to Korea in 2011 after marrying a Korean man who was introduced by her uncle who had been in Korea. When they were introduced, the man’s hands shook. He explained it was because he was nervous. “I believed it. I never knew it was a symptom of alcoholism,” she said.

Soon the husband began swearing at her after drinking. He often told her, “You married me not because you like me but because you want to make money here. Go away.” He then began hitting her when he was drunk. After two days of serious beating, Kim filed for divorce and the court granted it in May.

In the case of a Vietnamese woman, Tayan, 35, her husband started beating after they were married in May 2008 whenever they had trouble having sex. The 58-year-old husband would call her an “idiot” or “bitch.”

Tayan’s husband, who has two adult children from his previous marriage with a Korean woman, told Tayan’s family in Vietnam before marrying that all his family members agreed to the second marriage. This turned out to be lie since the husband concealed the marriage from his children.

“I’ve never met his Korean family. I even don’t know whether his parents are alive,” she said.

Whenever his children visited him, the husband would pack all of Tayan’s belongings and force her to leave the house until they left.

When she got pregnant twice, he forced her to have abortions. “He said Vietnamese people are stupid, so the baby would be stupid, too,” she said.

Tayan, however, does not want to divorce because she will have to leave Korea because the husband did not allow her to take necessary steps to obtain Korean citizenship, which immigrant spouses are eligible to obtain if they stay in the country for at least two years.

Many husbands use the legal right to residency as a weapon to control their foreign wives.

A 25-year-old Filipina, who identified herself as Catherine, had her alien registration certificate and passport seized by her husband because he claimed she would run away if she kept them.

Although she has been in Korea for five years, her spoken Korean is very poor because her mother-in-law did not allow her to attend language classes at a multicultural family support center. “She told me that ‘your husband works hard to make money but you enjoy yourself and have fun at the center. You also have to work hard and make money,’” she said.

Catherine had to endure the restrictions and beatings because she wanted to stay with her two children and feared she would lose them if she divorced. But finally she ran away because she could not stand the beatings and is now staying at a shelter. She is preparing to file for divorce, but has decided to give custody of her two children to her husband because she does not make enough money.

Seo Kwang-seok, president of the Migrants’ Social Integration Support Center in Incheon, said “visible” domestic violence in interracial families, meaning physical abuse, is decreasing, but there are other types of violence.

“Korean husbands often say, ‘I paid a lot of money to the marriage broker to bring you here’ or ‘I won’t let you get Korean citizenship’ and treat the immigrant wives roughly. These kinds of abuses hurt the wives,” he said.

“Especially the threat to their legal status to stay, such as renewing visa or acquiring citizenship, makes those women unable to resist their husbands,” he said.

Han Ga-eun, who heads a counseling team at the Women Migrants Human Rights Center, said, “Korean women who are subject to domestic violence have family and friends here, so they can seek help relatively easily and stay with them if they leave their husbands. But immigrant wives can’t. Many of them just put up with violence as they can’t stay in Korea legally if they split up with their husbands.”