Penalizing ‘runaway’ migrant wives: commercial cross-border marriages and home space as confinement

ABSTRACT

This study examines the use of the term ‘gachul (absconding from home)’ in courts and immigration policies to punish the behavior of marriage migrant women who enter South Korea after marriage and then leave their husbands. The study focuses on penalized mobility outside migrants’ marital homes, which is interpreted as deviance from the expected family role. By conceptualizing home as a confinable space, the paper discusses migrant women’s exclusion from citizenship based on their contribution to the family. The paper draws from cases heard in criminal courts and laws and policies, paying attention to the conflation of criminal, immigration, and family laws and the effect on marriage and family. Notably, it highlights cases of uxoricide, marital rape, and international child abduction. The cases reveal that judicial and executive bodies penalize marriage migrants’ departure from home, regardless of the justification for their actions.

KEYWORDS:

• Marriage migration
• criminalization
• immigration policies
• divorce
• domestic violence

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by Kyungpook National University Research Fund, 2019.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. These are Jang’s expressions, as told by the Court. Daejeon High Court, 2007no425 (Jan 23, 2008).

2. Daejeon High Court, 2007no425 (January 23, 2008). All translations of case laws are mine.

3. See Lee (2008) for discussion about marriage migration policies in South Korea.

4. ‘Demographic crisis’ such as low birth rate and gender imbalance in rural areas are the reasons the government welcomed marriage migrants (Lee 2012).

5. For stylistic and technical purposes (after all, ‘gachul’ is a legal term), I omit the use of quotation marks in the rest of this paper and use more charged terms (such as ‘runaway’ or ‘deserting one’s home’) together with more neutral expressions (such as ‘leaving her husband’).

6. The database is available on this website: https://glaw.scourt.go.kr/wsjo/intesrch/sjo022.do (last visited on January 15, 2021)

7. Among the remining, ‘illegal marriage brokerage’ and ‘fabrication of public documents and obstruction of justice’ are criminal charges applied to irregular migration practices such as identity document fabrication, marriage of convenience and unlawful actions during commercial cross-border matchmaking. While they may be of interest to those investigating criminalization of immigration violation, they are beyond the scope of this paper.

8. For example, Daegu High Court, 70no138 (June 24, 1970) and Supreme Court 70do29 (March 10, 1970)

9. Pangyeolyoji [Case Summary], Busan District Court, 2008gohab808, January 16, 2009 https://glaw.scourt.go.kr/wsjo/panre/sjo100.do?contId=1980678&q=2008%EA%B3%A0%ED%95%A9808&nq=&w=panre&section=panre_tot&subw=&subsection=&subId=1&csq=&groups=6,7,5,9&category=&outmax=1&msort=&onlycount=&sp=&d1=&d2=&d3=&d4=&d5=&pg=1&p1=&p2=&p3=&p4=&p5=&p6=&p7=&p8=&p9=&p10=&p11=&p12=&sysCd=WSJO&tabGbnCd=&saNo=&joNo=&lawNm=&hanjaYn=N&userSrchHistNo=&poption=&srch=&range=&daewbyn=N&smpryn=N&idgJyul=01&newsimyn=Y&tabId=&save=Y&bubNm=#Body (accessed on July 28, 2020)

10. Supreme Court 2012do14788,2012jeondo252 (16 May 2013)

11. Busan District Court, 2008gohab808 (January 16, 2009)

12. The defendant was sentenced to two years and six months of imprisonment, suspended for three years.

13. Aside from the wife’s gachul, other grounds for the suspension was the defendant’s repentance, the lack of criminal history, and the wife’s petition for clemancy.

14. Details about the case come from Supreme Court, 2010do14328 (June 20, 2013) and the transcription of the televised hearing (KTV 2013).

15. 2010do14328

16. The revised Nationality Act (revised June 14, 1998) allows a child to inherit nationality of both the mother and the father and those born with dual citizenship can legally hold dual citizenship until the age of 22 (Article 12). While dual citizenship holders previously had to choose one citizenship only, under the revised law, those born with multiple citizenships do not have to renounce other citizenships if they make an oath not to practice the foreign citizenship while in South Korea (Article 12 revised on May 4, 2010).

17. 2010do14328

18. This was reported in JoongAng Ilbo, ‘“21st Century Lai Dai Han” abandoned in Vietnam’ (pet’ŭname pangch’itoenŭn ‘21seki laittaihan’) 21 October 2010 (http://article.joins.com/news/article/article.asp?total_id=4551254&ctg= Last accessed on 30 March, 2015) The article quotes materials by the Ministry of Justice submitted to a Member of the National Assembly.

19. See, for example, the MOJ blog (in Korean, http://blog.daum.net/mojjustice/8705314, last accessed on July 31, 2020)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sohoon Yi

Dr Sohoon Yi is Assistant Professor in Sociology at Kyungpook National University. Her research interest is migrant subjectivity at the intersection of gender, immigration laws, precarious labor, and the informal market. She is currently developing a book manuscript on temporariness, borders, and ethno-kinship migration programs in South Korea.