2022.10.29. 03:00
Kim Ye‑won is a visually impaired human-rights lawyer who has spent more than a decade providing pro bono legal aid to children, people with disabilities, and other marginalized victims of abuse. Born with a medical accident that cost her an eye, she turned personal injustice into public advocacy, handling roughly 1,000 cases and challenging institutional discrimination. Her work ranges from representing developmentally disabled victims of sexual and labor exploitation to campaigning for legislative change and researching victim support systems as a visiting scholar at Duke University.
Kim argues that focusing only on sensational child‑abuse cases or increasing statutory penalties does not solve the underlying problem. She highlights systemic failures: unclear roles and poor information‑sharing among police, local government, schools, and child protection agencies, as well as a practice of automatic family separation that often ignores the child’s wishes and can retraumatize victims. Kim warns that harsher maximum sentences can paradoxically reduce prosecutions by raising evidentiary thresholds, and she calls for stronger, child‑centered interventions—monitoring, support for victims, and measures to prevent parental reoffending—rather than reflexive criminalization.
Beyond litigation on child abuse, Kim has led long campaigns against discriminatory rules—most notably a seven‑year effort to change licensing laws so visually impaired drivers can renew Class 1 licenses—and continues to press for systemic reform. She emphasizes that abuse occurs across all socioeconomic groups and urges the public to report suspicions rather than assuming abuse is limited to the most visible cases. Her message: protect children by centering their voices, reform fragmented institutions, and address discrimination against people with disabilities as part of a broader justice agenda.
Original source: 한쪽 눈으로 차별과 싸워온 여전사… “약자 울리는 검수완박에 분노한다” (Source: the news outlet; please refer to the original article.)
