All entertainment agencies to be inspected

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced Wednesday that it will seek legislation to prevent the sexual abuse an exploitation of trainees at entertainment agencies. The move comes after the chief executive officer of the Open World Entertainment was arrested last month for having sexually assaulted 11 girls who were training as singers or actresses at the agency.

“There is no system that protects trainees or star-wannabes from owners and staff members of agencies who force them to have sex.” said Kim Gap-su, director general in charge of the Cultural Content Industry Office at the ministry. “Of course, hallyu, or the Korean wave, contributed to boosting national brand power but abusive practices targeting young star-wannabes in the pop-culture industry have to be rooted out immediately.”

The ministry will inspect all entertainment agencies to check whether they are involved in unfair practices against trainees in collaboration with Korea Entertainment Producers’ Association and the Korea Entertainment Management Association. The two private organizations will also form task forces to cooperate with the government. The task forces will collect basic information on music video makers and training management agencies, such as what kinds of businesses they are doing, and how many trainees and entertainers they have.

Source: Koreatimes

Comments

[genie17.livejournal.com]

about time.

[shineebambi.livejournal.com]

this should have been done a long time a go

[shunluv.livejournal.com]

finally :P
at least future aspiring star will have safer future in entertainment world instead of going through the dark route of past idols..

[gigabytexx.livejournal.com]

SM

[silveretude.livejournal.com]

YES! I do wonder if they'll find anything, or if the agencies will have already hushed everyone up.

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

It's hard for me to understand how this took so long, tbh.

[eliteseal.livejournal.com]

Please also disband the useless MOGEF that were aimlessly banning harmless songs and instead used the resources and manpower for this act

[falling-empress.livejournal.com]

my comment exactly! :)

[krissasaur]

yyyyayyy! i hope they actually go through with it and didn't just say this to make it appear as if they care and are doing something about it tho.

[a-cheshire-grin.livejournal.com]

Good idea, no wait, make that great idea!!!
This should have happened a long time again!!

[illustratedd.livejournal.com]

if they actually do it and find some douchebags then good! if it's all talk, then fuck them.

[chikage-chan.livejournal.com]

If they actually carry through with this properly?
mte... my first thought was about how much dirt would be swept under the rug with bribery and such... but i hope that's just me being pessimistic.

[dalpaengee.livejournal.com]

everyone's mentioning SM but i honestly don't think it'll be any worse that whatever happens at JYP and YG. ALL of the companies are fucked up, guys. and I'm actually feeling most iffy about CCM...

[drfaith101.livejournal.com]

iawtc

[lovelyxbeauty.livejournal.com]

Thank God something is finally being done, it's good to see that this isn't being swept under the rug, like the last time a reporter investigated these claims and had proof that companies were doing this and nothing was done about it.

[itskimbitches.livejournal.com]

Oh come on guys do you actually think they'll do anything? This is just to appease the public not only national but international. They'll look around but not actually snoop. If the government is funding kpop they must be already watching and keeping everything covered so it doesn't blow in their faces. Plus these agencies are controlled by bigger agencies they run bigger stuff so I doubt they'll let kpop take them down. Even after the "slave contract" thing you would think they would be keeping an eye on the system since people were worried but they turn the other way.

The only way to know what's really going on is for a trainee to be a spy or an idol to right an autobiography.

[kiminikaeru.livejournal.com]

mte

[a-perfect-shade.livejournal.com]

I hope they really do put this into effect beyond words. There is some level of physical, sexual, or psychological harassment at all of your fav's companies, and hopefully this can grant some victims justice.

And that's not Kim Gap Su the actor, right...? Or does he also serve as director general of whatever.

[asnindie.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy if they weren't doing this just for show, but atleast it's a step in the right direction.

No way a big Company will be embroiled here though, they wouldn't want their Hallyu cash cow to get any scandal.

[smilez4you.livejournal.com]

good

[rurutia88.livejournal.com]

LOL...koreans are known for contradicting themselves

[geniebsmart.livejournal.com]

This is either

1) going to be a mass clean out

Or

2) going to hardly make a dent

I'm nervous ngl .___.

[opal.livejournal.com]

yeah, i doubt anything will come from this.

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

CCM will be my thermometer in this. If they go there and say that this company is allright and is "clean", I'll know it's all a fraud and a joke.

Eyes on you. Eyes. On. You.

[scubajr.livejournal.com]

Perfect gif. I miss that show.

[deeinanutshell.livejournal.com]

Puh-leaze. Even if they really do find stuff in medium-large companies, I doubt we will hear a peep about it. Especially large companies that hold incredible amounts of power of the media like the big 3 (and the men getting sexual favours from trainees who are probably just as or even more powerful). And let's face it: it would take a large company to get caught and everyone's favorite idol to be involved for people to actually really start caring and for shit to change (ex: slave contracts and DBSK). But the companies absolutely don't want that, and the idols probably would not want to put their images at risk anyway. So unfortunately, I really doubt anything will change.

[rinn1e.livejournal.com]

A few agencies they won't inspect, that for sure.

[dotdotdotting.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I don't think this inspection is gonna yield any results, unfortunately. There's probably going to be some higher power at work here so nothing that would put the agency in a bad situation would be revealed.

[kelliusmaximus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why people are concerned about SM, the bigger a company is the more scrutiny it's under. Especially after the lawsuit dramas, they know people are paying attention so they will keep it as clean as possible. It's the smaller companies which go mostly unobserved that you need to worry about. That's not to say it doesn't happen at all companies, sexual exploitation is an almost unavoidable problem because of the nature of the entertainment industry, but SM is not going to be the worst of them.

Also tbh I'm pretty sick of people always bringing up slave contracts. The Korean Fair Trade Organization asked them to reduce the length of their contracts and they did (and they didn't have a problem with the payment distribution). I'm not saying SM is this perfectly ethical company, but they're publicly listed, audited, etc, their book keeping and adherence to the law is going to be pretty spot on because they will get caught if it isn't. Overwork is a totally different issue, and a far more complex one... you can't assume idols would prefer a reasonable workload if it came at the cost of popularity/success.