[Opinion] I Hate This World

˝I hate this world,˝ said a 14-year-old girl, saddening hearts of many. Grown-ups will find it hard to turn their heads up as they breathe the same air under the same sky as her. It is a horrible reality. For parents like me, it is even so. I don`t know how I ever sit face to face with my daughter. It is as if the 14-year-old asks every man in this society, ˝Aren`t you all complicities in this crime?˝

Choi had lived happily with her parents and two younger brothers until June last year. One day, after her father went out to work, one of his coworkers visited their house and raped the mother and the daughter. Her mother got pregnant and mentally-distracted. Her father left the family and Choi had to quit school in early April to make a living for her family. Looking for a job, she surfed the Internet and fell prey to sexual exploitation.

For five months, she met about 30 `bros` and `uncles.` Men in their 20s and early 30s, including an office worker, a college student and a gym trainer, called her out. They paid 50,000 won to 100,000 won, and Choi used the money to pay for her mother`s hospital bills and feed her younger brothers. She was losing feeling of guiltiness. Then, men began to belittle her. She was only a sexual toy for them. A college student gave her a pack of cigarettes and 8,000 won after having sex with her three times. An office worker, who slept with her 28 times, gave 15,000 won. ˝I hate those men who do not keep promises. They are so selfish,˝ said the young girl. People were dumbfounded as she talked about a man who gave her some 100-won coins after having sex.

The police tracked down the girl`s mobile phone communication records and identified 18 men. Arrest warrants have been issued for four of them for having sex with an underage. Punishing them will not heal the wound inflicted to the young heart, however. We hope her father will soon come home and many come out to help her family. ˝She is a clever girl, so if people guide and take care of her, she will get over the past and find her way,˝ said an police officer involving in the case.

Oh Myung-cheol, Editorial Writer, oscar@donga.com