A South Korean court has overturned the 60-year-old conviction of an elderly woman who was jailed as a teenager for biting the tongue of an alleged sexual assaulter, ending a long fight for justice that has rallied support from women nationwide.
Choi Mal-ja, now 79, alleged she had been sexually assaulted as an 18-year-old in 1964, by a man asking for directions in the coastal city of Busan.
She only escaped by biting off 1.5cm (0.6 inch) of the man’s tongue – prompting him to sue her for grievous bodily harm. She counter-sued him for attempted rape, trespassing and intimidation.
But this was South Korea in the 1960s – a deeply patriarchal society that was singularly focused on rebuilding from the devastation of the Korean war and Japan’s brutal occupation before that. Women were expected to fully support men, and domestic violence was so common there wasn’t even a word for it at the time.
The result: Choi was sentenced to 10 months in prison and two years of probation, a harsher punishment than that of the aggressor, who was sentenced to six months of prison and one year of probation for trespassing and threatening. Prosecutors dropped his attempted rape charge.
But as the decades passed, women’s rights campaigns including the #MeToo movement sparked Choi’s determination to overturn her conviction – even if justice only finally came to her as an elderly woman.
She has been fighting for this since 2020, with the Supreme Court ultimately ordering a retrial at the Busan District Court – which granted her acquittal on Wednesday.
The court ruled there was insufficient evidence provided by the prosecutor’s office that the man suffered permanent disability from his tongue injury.
It pointed to medical records that showed he had undergone surgery for his tongue, passed military fitness examinations and served in the military. One witness testified that his speech had returned to normal levels within a year.
The court also found that Choi’s act was one of self-defense, “to protect herself from unlawful assault.”
Its ruling was met with celebration and joy from Choi and her many supporters, who had gathered outside the court. Videos from CNN affiliate JTBC show the crowd holding signs, handing the grey-haired Choi bouquets of flowers, and chanting: “Choi Mal-ja did it!”
“People warned me, saying it would be like hitting an egg against a rock, but I couldn’t just let this case be buried,” Choi said, according to JTBC.
Her lawyers are now planning to file a damages lawsuit against the South Korean government, JTBC reported.
Changing attitudes
Choi Mal-ja on stage at a Women’s Day event hosted by the Korea Women’s Hot-Line organization on March 8, 2025. – Lee Chakyeong
Choi’s original trial reflected just how many obstacles women faced in obtaining justice at the time.
Choi has claimed that her rights were infringed upon during the investigation and trial process, during which she and her supporters say she was handcuffed and later made to undergo a test to prove her virginity, the result of which was made public.
According to Choi’s testimonies, prosecutors and judges asked her during the investigation and trial whether she would like to marry the aggressor to conclude the case.
Becoming his wife, the theory went, might make amends for his injuries, as no other woman would want to marry a man with half a tongue.
Wang Mi-yang, the president of the Korea Women Lawyers Association, said the original ruling in 1965 reflected the “social prejudice and distorted views on victims of sexual violence that remained deeply rooted in our society.”
“The social atmosphere of the time probably had the prosecutors siding with the man, and I believe the concept of sexual violence likely didn’t exist,” Wang told CNN in an interview earlier this year.
But anti-sexual violence movements flourished in the 1990s and even included campaigns seeking justice for “comfort women,” a euphemism for the victims of sexual slavery enforced by the Japanese military in Korea during and before World War II.
The global #MeToo movement properly took hold in South Korea in 2018, holding powerful men to account and pushing the government to enforce harsher punishments for crimes of sexual violence.
It was these changing attitudes that motivated Choi Mal-ja to seek a retrial.
“The girl’s life, which couldn’t even blossom, was forever unfair and in resentment… the country must compensate for my human rights,” Choi wrote in a letter to the Supreme Court last year, as part of her application for a retrial.
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