Essay winners meet British ambassador, discuss women's issues

Diplomacy

Published: 17 Mar. 2022, 17:34 Updated: 17 Mar. 2022, 19:21

Essay winners meet British ambassador, discuss women's issues

Colin Crooks, the British ambassador to Korea, center, speaks with winners of the International Women's Day Essay Writing Competition, Park Se-yeon, left, and Park Eo-jin, right, at the British Embassy in Seoul on Wednesday. [KIM HYUN-DONG]

Footage of a Russian attack on a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, just a day after International Women’s Day, painted a stark picture of what women and children are faced with in times of conflict and oppression, said two winners of a writing competition hosted by the British Embassy in Seoul on Wednesday.

“Especially the Ukrainian conflict, and also civil wars in Yemen and Afghanistan and other parts of the world, have shown that this has always been a relevant issue,” said Park Eo-jin, a 16-year-old student of the Chadwick International School in Incheon. “Women often bear the brunt of such conflicts, and it isn’t often that we get to hear their perspectives.”

Park was one of dozens of female students across Korea’s middle and high schools who took part in the International Women’s Day writing competition organized by the British Embassy in Seoul and the Korea JoongAng Daily earlier this month.

The international day for women is celebrated annually on March 8. Photos and videos of an attack at a maternity hospital in Mariupol, some showing a pregnant woman on a stretcher, were released by AP journalists on March 9 and quickly went viral. The woman was reported to have died shortly afterwards, along with her baby.

“The Ukraine issue is something that unites all free countries,” said Colin Crooks, the British ambassador to Korea, in speaking with the JoongAng Ilbo and the Korea JoongAng Daily at the embassy on Wednesday. “This is an attack by a regime not just on a country, but on democracy, human rights and values that we all share. The way in which the Russian military are carrying out indiscriminate attacks on civilians, on women, on children, on maternity hospitals, is something that the whole world sees.”

The writing contestants wrote about how they would use their power and influence as an ambassador, if they could be an ambassador for a day, to make a positive change in society.

Park took home the top prize among the high school contestants, and Park Se-yeon, a 14-year-old student at Chadwick International School, did so among the middle school participants.

The duo joined Crooks for a day’s work at the embassy on Wednesday. They also met with women ambassadors and diplomats of Britain, Korea, the European Union and Kenya.

“As a 14-year-old student, it’s very rare that I get to talk with people in leadership positions, [especially those] who are women,” said Park Se-yeon. “It’s been eye opening to hear from them about how they made certain decisions along the way, including in seeking a balance between work and family.”

The winners of the competition and the top British envoy also discussed key gender issues that have come to the fore during Korea's recent presidential election, and the president-elect’s plan to abolish the country's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.

There were some startling statistical differences among female and male voters in their 20s and 30s in Korea in the past election. Men in their 20s — popularly known as idaenam, a term that conjures an image of an angry young male voter — swung heavily for President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, while over half of the women in their 20s, widely dubbed idaenyeo, voted for his rival Lee Jae-myung.

The gender gap in support for the two candidates was replicated, albeit in a less extreme form, among voters in their 30s.

“It’s important to understand that gender equality is not [about] offering superiority to female rights,” said Park Se-yeon. “It means that we’re offering equal rights to both men and women and other genders as well.”

On the topic of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family being in hot water, Crooks declined to make a direct comment, but pointed out a relevant index.

“All societies have this issue, and I believe the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] has pointed out, in Korea, if you had equal salaries between men and women, Korea’s GDP would grow something like 12 percent,” he said. “So to the extent that Korea and other societies have that untapped potential, it’s in everyone’s economic interests to be offering that equality of opportunity.”

According to the OECD last year, Korea was the No. 1 nation in its pay gap between women and men. Women in Korea get paid 31.5 percent less than men do, according to the organization.

Crooks, who was one of the last British nationals to see Pyongyang with his own eyes before the North's embassy closed down in 2020 over Covid-19 restrictions, said the issue of gender equality is a highly pertinent one for all nations, regardless of their government systems and social beliefs.

“It’s clear that women have quite a defined role in North Korean society,” he said. “As markets have developed in the last 20 to 30 years, most of the people who are working in markets are women. […] My fear is that the closure of the borders in the last two years in North Korea […] will have caused some rollback of those reforms, and the impact on women would have been more serious.”

The writing competition was one of the embassy’s first public diplomacy projects since Crooks began his post in Seoul this year.

“It is inspiring to hear the strength of feeling that’s coming from young Korean women on this, and we’re hearing the exact same sentiments repeated by young people in the U.K.,” said Ambassador Crooks. “We all have a long way to go to break through glass ceilings. […] We believe we should be offering equality of opportunity to everyone, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or race.”

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]