South Korean Woman Acquitted 61 Years After Biting Off Attacker’s Tongue in Act of Self-Defence
In a landmark ruling, a South Korean woman who was convicted more than six decades ago for injuring a man who allegedly attempted to sexually assault her has finally been acquitted.
Choi Mal-ja was just 18 years old in 1964 when she bit off a portion of her attacker’s tongue while resisting a sexual assault. Despite acting in self-defence, she was convicted of grievous bodily harm and handed a harsher sentence than her assailant—10 months in jail compared to his six-month suspended sentence.
Now 78, Ms Choi was cleared by a court in Busan following a retrial that concluded this week. The case had gained national attention in South Korea, where it’s long been cited in legal textbooks as an example of how courts have historically failed to recognise women’s right to defend themselves from sexual violence.
“I could not let this case go unanswered,” Ms Choi said outside the courtroom, surrounded by supporters holding signs that read “Choi Mal-ja did it!” and “Justice served.”
Her decades-long journey to clear her name was reignited by the #MeToo movement in 2018, when she contacted women’s advocacy groups and began collecting evidence to file for a retrial. After years of setbacks—including multiple rejections by lower courts—South Korea’s Supreme Court finally granted her a retrial in December 2024.
During the first hearing in July, prosecutors issued a rare public apology and urged the court to overturn her conviction—an unusual but symbolic act of institutional accountability.
Court records show the attack happened in the southern town of Gimhae, where the 21-year-old man pinned Ms Choi to the ground. She managed to escape by biting off approximately 1.5cm (0.59in) of his tongue.
Despite her injuries and trauma, she was prosecuted for excessive force. The attacker, meanwhile, never faced rape charges and continued to harass her for years—at one point even breaking into her home armed with a knife.
“The incident changed the course of my life—turning me from a victim into a criminal,” said Ms Choi. “People warned me it would be like throwing eggs at a rock. But I couldn’t stay silent.”
Women’s rights advocates say this verdict marks a significant turning point in how self-defence is viewed in cases of sexual violence in South Korea.
“This sends a powerful message: your voice matters,” said Song Ran-hee, director of Korea Women’s Hotline, one of the groups supporting Ms Choi’s campaign.
She added, “Going forward, women’s defensive actions will be more widely recognised as legitimate. This is a step towards reducing the number of victims forced to suffer in silence.”
Ms Choi’s case echoes two similar rulings—one in 1988 and another in 2020—where courts recognised women biting off their attackers’ tongues as acts of legitimate self-defence. However, hers remained a painful outlier until now.
Speaking after the verdict, Ms Choi expressed gratitude to those who stood by her and condemned those who “abused their authority to trample the weak and manipulate the law.”
She hopes her long fight will pave the way for other survivors: “No one should have to bear that pain alone.”
