South Korea overturns the 60-year-old conviction of elderly woman who was jailed for biting an alleged attacker’s tongue

Seoul, South Korea —

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