President Lee condemns death of female firefighter who reported forced drinking as 'worst kind of gapjil'

President Lee Jae-myung on Tuesday condemned the death of a female firefighter who had complained of workplace harassment — including being forced to drink alcohol — calling it "gapjil in the workplace, and the worst kind of gapjil at that."

Speaking at a Cabinet and emergency economic review meeting he chaired at Cheong Wa Dae, Lee referenced the case and said, "Not long ago I asked the Office for Government Policy Coordination to look into it, and I'm told everything turned out to be true."

Lee expressed grief over the victim's suffering. "How much pain must she have endured before she passed away? How heartbroken must her boyfriend and family be? And how frustrated must they have felt when their pleas to have the truth revealed were simply ignored?" he said. "If you put yourself in their shoes, how could anyone act this way?"

He went on to say, "She went to work to make a living, and what did her superiors do? They treated her like a plaything — using her as an object for drinking and entertainment. This is the worst form of workplace gapjil, and the problem is that they don't even seem to realize how serious their conduct was."

Lee said that while such behavior may have been tolerated in the past, this incident happened recently, and called for a broad review of workplace culture across the public sector. "How can this still be happening?" he said.

He urged each ministry, department and agency to conduct internal organizational reviews. "Please make sure this kind of thing never happens again," he said.

Earlier, on June 11, Lee raised the case on social media, citing allegations that the Gwangju fire department had forced the firefighter to drink at work gatherings and had ignored the bereaved family's request for an internal investigation into her death last year. He ordered a thorough probe into the circumstances of her death — including the work dinners and forced drinking — as well as why the request for an investigation had been dismissed, and directed that the inquiry be conducted by the Office for Government Policy Coordination rather than the National Fire Agency to ensure objectivity.

Meanwhile, after the firefighter died in October last year, the Gwangju Fire Department stated in an official document that the cause of death was difficulties she had experienced in her relationship with her fiancé. Her fiancé disputed this, presenting text messages and other evidence showing she had suffered from being forced to drink by superiors, and called for an internal investigation. The department went more than five months without launching one and began an investigation only last month after the bereaved family visited the National Fire Agency.

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