New Jeans’ Hanni shows up to indicate at the National Assembly in Seoul onOct 15, 2024. KIM MIN-HEE/AFP through Getty Images
In an uncommon minute of psychological candidness for the K-pop sector, NewJeans participant Hanni required to the flooring of South Korea’s National Assembly on Tuesday (Oct 15) to deal with the concern of work environment harassment and intimidation. Testifying prior to the Labour Committee of South Korea’s National Assembly, the 20-year-old mentioned her and NewJeans’ experiences functioning under ADOR, the team’s sub-label that belongs to HYBE that likewise houses the tags sustaining BTS, SEVENTEEN, LE SSERAFIM and much more.
Arriving at the Seoul court noontime on Tuesday to a media frenzy of excited press reporters and digital photographers, Hanni, that is Vietnamese-Australian, cooperated her statement that she really felt threatened and overlooked by her business’s monitoring. Recalling the event she had actually formerly shared throughout NewJeans’ guerrilla livestream last month, Hanni defined exactly how a supervisor looking after an additional K-pop act had actually advised the musicians to “ignore” the NewJeans vocalist.
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“We have a floor in our building where we do hair and makeup and, at that time, I was waiting in the hallway because my hair and makeup was done first,” Hanni shared, per the BBC, throughout the telecasted legislative audit. “I said hello to all of them, and then they came back about five or 10 minutes later. On her way out, [the manager] made eye contact with me, turned to the rest of the group, and said, ‘Ignore her like you didn’t see her.’ I don’t understand why she would say something like that in the work environment.”
Hanni claims these cases were not separated however component of a wider pattern that left her and her bandmates really feeling disrespected. She comprehensive extra circumstances where elderly HYBE execs stopped working to recognize her.
“Since my debut, we ran into a person in a high-up position many times, but they never greeted me when I greeted them,” she claimed, in some cases with splits, in her statement. “I understood from living in Korea that I have to be polite to older people and that’s part of the culture — but I think it’s just disrespectful as a human being to not greet us, regardless of our professional status. There was a certain vibe [of disrespect] that I felt within the company.” Adding that the cases had her come “to the realization that this wasn’t just a feeling. I was honestly convinced that the company hated us.”
Representing HYBE throughout the hour-long hearing, existing ADOR CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Ju Young Kim (that changed NewJeans developer Min Hee- jin as chief executive officer after HYBE’s numerous demands to tip down) claimed she would certainly “listen more closely” to the musicians. “I believe I did everything I could,” Kim reacted. “But seeing that Hanni felt this way and that the situation escalated to this point, I wonder if there was more I could have done.”
“I was told that because there wasn’t any evidence, there was nothing that could be done,” Hanni described,per The New York Times The electrical outlet included that Kim mentioned her choice based upon varying accounts of what occurred.
With the K-pop sector notorious for firmly regulated and high-pressure stories in between musicians, business and the media, Hanni’s straight statement is an one-of-a-kind understanding right into a musician’s day-to-day experiences past the limelight that can signify hope towards much more open discussions regarding responsibility. South Korea’s Environment and Labor Committee of the National Assembly is presently checking out functioning problems in the enjoyment field, where labor regulations do not cover lots of entertainers. During the hearing, An Ho- young, the head of the panel, highlighted the requirement for legislators to guard the legal rights of performers.
According to the Korea JooAng Daily, Ju Young Kim, formerly in a management placement in HYBE’s personnels division, broadened on the intricacy of taking care of musicians and workers.
“My understanding is that artists are not defined as employees by the law,” she claimed when inquired about anti-harassment laws for business workers and musicians, per Korea JooAn gDaily “We have an internal guidance policy where we explain how constituents, regardless of whether they are employees or not, should respect each other. We are holding regular training programs and using a lot of effort to form our corporate culture.” Kim included that musicians can not make use of HYBE’s business hotline to report work environment harassment however rather stick to “an internal guidance policy where we explain how constituents, regardless of whether they are employees or not, should respect each other.”
While NewJeans have actually proactively agreed Min Hee- jin in the exec’s recurring power deal with HYBE, Hanni revealed a much more global hope concerning the future of operating in K-pop.
“I hope trainees don’t suffer these incidents and that’s why I decided to appear,” Hanni claimed,according to Reuters “I know it’s not going to solve all the problems in the world, but if we just respect each other, at least there will be no problems with bullying and harassment in the workplace.”
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