|
SEOUL - THE 'love shot' drinking ritual, which is a fad in South Korea, amounts to sexual harassment if the woman in question is unwilling to take part, the country's top court ruled yesterday.
The Supreme Court upheld a lower court's ruling that found a 48-year-old man guilty of sexual harassment for forcing restaurant waitresses to do a 'love shot', in which two people snuggle close and drink with their arms entwined.
It ordered the man - a construction company owner identified as Koo, according to the Korea Times - to pay a fine of 3 million won (S$4,200).
'Forcing a love shot when women refuse it... is tantamount to sexual harassment,' Yonhap news agency quoted Judge Kim Hwang Sik as saying in his ruling. The court said the act was humiliating and against common moral sense, Korea Times reported.
The man offered 30,000 won to the 28-year-old waitress to perform a love shot with him at a golf club restaurant in South Gyeongsang province in 2005.
When she refused, he lied about being the club's vice-president and threatened that she would lose her job.
He then threw his arm around her neck and performed a love shot, rubbing his cheek against hers.
On the same day, he also asked another waitress, a 25-year-old, to do a love shot with him.
'Given that the waitresses resisted Koo's attempts to hug and caress them before drinking, we can only conclude his behaviour was sexual harassment,' the court said.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
|
