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| ▲This photo shows boy group Omega X having a press conference with their lawyers. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Dec. 5 (Yonhap) -- American daily newspaper, New York Times (NYT) on Sunday (Local time) has spotlighted concerns about whether South Korean entertainment agencies exploit young musicians based on the boy group Omega X, who filed a law suit against the head of their agency after physically and sexually abused.
NYT pointed out that the abuse of an executive from Omega X's agency that place at an L.A. hotel once again raised "concerns about whether South Korean entertainment agencies exploit young musicians."
The newspaper reported that an executive from their management agency screamed at the group at an L.A. hotel and pushed one band member, Km Jaehan, 27, to the ground, footage recorded by by passerby and reported on Korean Television.
The band members then flew home to Seoul at their own expense and later took their entertainment agency to court. The members revealed that the executive habitually made sexual harassment, forcibly touched their thighs, hands, and faces, while verbally abusing them. They have requested all 11 members to be released from their multiyear contracts with the agency, Spire Entertainment, and considering filing a criminal complaint.
"I took care of all of them like their mother," Ms. Kang, the executive, told The New York Times in a phone interview, adding that Kim Jaehan had collapsed on his own.
Kang also denied any wrongdoings and she believes that the band members have accused her of abuse in order to justify moving to a larger agency.
Yet reactions abroad are cold. Local companies helping with Omega X's activities in the United States and Japan have cut off their relations with Spire Entertainment, and there has been testimony that Kang's verbal abuse was also witnessed at tours in U.S and South America
Gigi Granados, 25, a cosmetologist who attended a show at Palladium Times Square in New York City, said she had witnessed Ms. Kang screaming at members of the band at their hotel after the performance. "No one deserves to be yelled at that way," she said.
The newspaper mentioned that experts on K-pop say the band's accusations against their agency, if true, would be consistent with other stories from industry insiders and whistleblowers.
They say some management companies, especially smaller ones, routinely exploit young artists who are desperate to become K-pop idols.
Jin Lee, a scholar of Asian pop cultures and a research fellow at Curtin University in Australia said, since the 1990s, "the level of exploitation has been systematized and also normalized because the K-pop industry has become dominant, and more ambitious young people have been drawn to it."
Workers in South Korea, a deeply hierarchical society, are increasingly speaking up about bosses who abuse their authority.
The newspaper introduced other cases of K-pop musicians, claiming that regulations governing contracts between artists and their agencies have not been highlighted, and many aspiring K-pop stars debut in their teens, starting out in a structure in which it is difficult to establish an equal relationship.
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Jiwon Woo.)
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