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Sexual Harrassment by the Director of an Overseas NGO [2007] KRNHRC 19 (1 January 2007)

Citizen "Lee (woman)" filed a complaint with the Commission, contending that she felt
harassed and sexually abused, and was under a lot of stress while working for the
Cambodian Culture and Welfare Center operated by "C" Public Welfare Group. The
complainant alleged that the Director of the Center said that he would describe how he
engaged in actions similar to sex with his own daughter and made other comments not
socially tolerable. He would also make obscene and vulgar comments that made the
complainant a subject of his sexual desires such as "I feel the scent of a woman," and "I
imagined a naked woman while you were taking a shower." The complainant also said that
the respondent watched pornographic videos at volumes large enough for Lee to hear, and
stored a pornographic video in a laptop shared by employees to force Lee to see the video.
The respondent denied any wrongdoing, and claimed that the complainant had a grudge
against him, because he scolded her for not following his order in Cambodia.
The Commission investigated witnesses in Korea and Cambodia. It found that the
respondent had used sexually abusing words even before the incident happened, and that
two other female employees of the Cambodian Culture and Welfare Center had faced
similar verbal and physical sexual harassment. It was also confirmed that the complainant
had consistently informed her colleagues and "C" Public Welfare Group of the sexual
harrassment incident.

Based on these findings, the Commission concluded that the respondent's actions
amounted to sexual harrassment in the workplace and should provide damages of 30
million won to the complainant, because he committed sexual harrassment in the
workplace. Also, it recommended the Secretary General of "C" Public Welfare Group to
include education preventing sexual harrassment in its training programs for employees
both in Korea and overseas in order to prevent recurrence of similar incidents, and to
develop guidelines to address sexual harrassment in the workplace.