DP expels Jindo County head for comments about 'importing young virgins'
Published: 09 Feb. 2026, 13:07
Updated: 09 Feb. 2026, 18:32
![Jindo County head Kim Hee-soo speaks during a town hall meeting on the proposed administrative integration of Gwangju and South Jeolla at the Haenam Culture and Arts Center in South Jeolla on Feb. 4. [SCREEN CAPTURE]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2026/02/09/61042676-e98f-46e8-b440-a60d78943091.jpg)
Jindo County head Kim Hee-soo speaks during a town hall meeting on the proposed administrative integration of Gwangju and South Jeolla at the Haenam Culture and Arts Center in South Jeolla on Feb. 4. [SCREEN CAPTURE]
The Democratic Party expelled Jindo County head Kim Hee-soo after convening a Supreme Council meeting on Monday, following comments widely condemned as demeaning toward foreign women made last week.
Park Soo-hyun, the party’s chief spokesperson, told reporters after the meeting that the Supreme Council unanimously approved an emergency disciplinary measure to expel Kim via a vote.
“The decision was made in response to the public controversy caused by his recent derogatory remarks about foreign women,” Park said.
Kim sparked backlash during a town-hall meeting on administrative integration between Gwangju and South Jeolla held last Wednesday at the Haenam Culture and Arts Center, where he said, “If Gwangju and South Jeolla are integrated, we should legislate measures addressing population extinction, and if that doesn’t work, maybe we should import young virgins from places like Sri Lanka or Vietnam so that rural bachelors can get married.”
"Virgins" — cheonyeo in Korean — can also be loosely translated as "young, unmarried women," but the literal translation and dictionary meaning refer to virgins.
As criticism mounted on his use of the word “import” for women, Kim issued an apology the following day, saying his remarks were intended to highlight “structural problems such as severe population decline in rural and fishing communities and the weakening foundation for marriage and childbirth.”
He added that his comments were meant to argue that “industrial revitalization alone cannot resolve population extinction” and that “proactive institutional responses are needed at both the integrated Gwangju-South Jeolla local government level and the national level.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY PARK JONG-SUH [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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