[Profile] Professor, former activist tapped as gender equality minister

Chung Hyun-back, the nominee for gender equality minister, is a history professor and women’s rights activist who has devoted her career to tackling gender inequality and labor disparity.

Chung, 64, served as a co-head of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a liberal civic group, from 2010-2016. She also headed the Korean Women’s Association United from 2002-2007.

Cheong Wa Dae expressed hopes for the nominee to take a lead in improving working conditions for women and boosting support for the youth to help create a safe and healthy environment for them.

“I heavily feel a sense of responsibility and duty as a nominee under the administration which is strongly determined to achieve gender equality,” she said. “Gender equality is a core value that cannot be pushed back anymore for the happiness and safety of the public and the sustainable future of South Korea.”

As a sitting history professor at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Chung is also viewed as having expertise on how to handle the controversial agreement with Japan on the wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II.

She has attended a demonstration on Wednesdays in front of the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul alongside victims of the sex slavery, calling for annulment of the deal.

The presidential office initially said that Chung was to handle “urgent” affairs such as a “renegotiation” over the Korea-Japan deal on sex slavery when it announced her as the nominee. But it withdrew the term “renegotiation” about an hour later in an apparent attempt not to provoke diplomatic tensions.

President Moon Jae-in hinted at renegotiations over the deal on his presidential campaign trail, saying Japan needs to take legal responsibility and offer an official apology. But he has not yet made it official on whether to launch a renegotiation with Japan.

Born in Busan, Chung graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in history education an earned a master’s degree in western history there. She obtained a doctorate in German modern history at Ruhr-University Bochum.

By Ock Hyun-ju (laeticia.ock@heraldcorp.com)