Airdre Mattner was just like any other young person: she wanted to explore the world. The 25-year-old primary school teacher took a job teaching English in Japan, and decided to explore the nearby Asian countries.
One of the first stops on her list was the bustling town of Seoul in Korea, where she planned to soak up the local culture. Since she was travelling alone, she decided to sign up for a pub crawl, where she hoped to meet fellow travellers.
On the night in question, Airdre purchased all her own drinks. Somehow, her third drink of the night was still spiked. Instead of enjoying a relaxing evening, Airdre was drugged, kidnapped and raped.
On last night’s 60 Minutes, she told her story in the hopes that no other young women will fall victim to the same type of crime. “It was not a slow process,” Airdre tells Allison Langdon of realising she had been drugged.
“It was a blackout and being aware that I was in the back of a taxi being taken somewhere, and being violently ill.”
It quickly became clear that Airdre was in danger, but the man who sat with her in the back of the cab refused to let her out or take her home.
"I was terrified and I didn't know what else I could do, other than just beg with the man to take me back to the hostel."
But they didn't. And although Airdre's memory from that point forward was a hazy mess, security footage from the hotel clearly shows two men going in to rent the room.
They returned just over an hour later with Aidre in tow.
Top Comments
Men get away with rape in all countries of the world, including Australia. The coverage of this story I have seen so far has been heavily biased and quite hypocritical. I read elsewhere a highlighted quote from the victim saying that Koreans have a sleazy nickname for white women and a perception of them as sexually promiscuous. White Australian men also have sleazy nicknames for women of various Asian ethnicities and racialised stereotypes of their sexual behaviour.
Ofcourse the rapists should be charged and punished accordingly, yes the alleged behaviour of the police was appalling. Could this just as easily have happened in Australia? Yes.
Thanks for this. I cannot believe how many times it takes for people, even really smart women to be told this about Australia and either no one gets it or no one cares.
Contact the US Military? Are you kidding? There was a woman in this show last night raped by a US serviceman in Japan and the US Armed Forces let him get away with it! The US armed forces have many strategic interests in Japan and Korea - that means they are unlikely to kick up much of a fuss about sexual assault.