Korean Women’s Association United (KWAU)
\nReview of Korea Women\u2019s Human Rights
\n1. Introduction
\nAs a former CEO and candidate of an opposition party won the 17th presidential election of
\nSouth Korea in 2007, efficiency and market-driven political philosophy are becoming
\npredominant in the name of pragmatism. Particularly, government ministries are eliminated or
\nconsolidated in an effort to address public distrust of government and under the pretext of
\nefficiency. The new administration now wants to combine the Ministry of Gender Equality &
\nFamily and the Ministry of Health & Welfare and to reduce the ministry responsible for gender
\naffairs to a toothless committee within another ministry. This is a huge setback for Korean
\nwomen\u2019s human rights considering the ministry has been shaping regulations for gender
\nequality and improving their effectiveness.
\n1-1. Elimination of a Government Ministry Dedicated to Women Affairs
\nThe Ministry of Gender Equality was first established in 2001 and expanded the scope of its
\nresponsibility by taking over childcare matters in 2004 and family policies in 2005. Now, the
\nministry is soon to be disbanded as a proposal for reorganization of government bodies is
\nsubmitted to the National Assembly in January 21, 2008. The ministry started from a special
\ncommission under president and then, minister without portfolio before it was finally raised to an
\nindependent ministry with enforcement authority, responsible for coordination among different
\nministries and offices, gender impact assessments, gender-sensitive budgeting and egalitarian
\neducation. Considering that Korea is in the stage where policies for gender equality are taking
\nroot and bearing fruit, consolidating a ministry leading such efforts with another ministry
\ncovering general welfare services is equal to throwing away the vision and philosophy for
\nrealization of a more equal society. The elimination will have huge impact on social development
\nand empowerment for women at the time when support for caring labor is increasingly called for
\nas Korea is heading for an aged society with falling birth rates and the ministry needs to lay out
\ncomprehensive policies in response to changes in women and family lives more than ever.
\n2. Core Requirements for Korean Women\u2019s Human Rights
\n2-1. More Regular Women Workers and No Discrimination across Employment Types
\nThough more women want to work, only 54.7% of women aged 15 ~ 64 actually landed a job in
\n2006, 6 percent points lower than 60.8%, the average of OECD member countries. According to
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\na survey of Korea National Statistical Office in August, 2006, among those working women,
\n67.6% have non-regular jobs and suffer from low-paying insecure employment. They did not
\nhave quality jobs and vocational training. The average wage of such non-regular female workers
\nwas only 43% that of their regular male counterparts. Considering only 5% of working women
\nare organized, more assistance is needed to make equal pay for equal work accepted as a
\nsocial norm for women regardless of workplace size or employment type.
\nKorean government enacted laws to ensure 90-day maternity leave with costs covered by public
\nemployment insurance in 2005, strong improvement of working conditions in workplaces with
\nmore than 1,000 employees and enforcement of anti-discrimination law for non-regular workers
\nin July, 2007. The government must do more, however, because these measures benefit only
\n30% of working women who have regular jobs. The law to protect non-regular workers has been
\neffective since 2007, but any official remedy against discrimination can be sought only by
\nindividual workers who claim to be discriminated against on the ground that he or she has no
\npermanent position. Even such a procedure is followed, the authorities compare employment
\npractices of the employer a complaint is filed against and those of its competitors in the same
\nindustry, not general business practices. Therefore, the law must be expanded to become more
\neffective, and be revised to prevent massive layoff or labor outsourcing often used by
\nbusinesses which do not want to recruit regular workers. Criteria for equal-pay-for-equal-work
\n(i.e. gender-sensitive job assessment model and guidance) and anti-discrimination regulations
\nneed to be devised to reduce inequality across different genders, employment types and
\nbusiness sizes. Care workers and other unofficial workers need to be legally recognized as
\nworkers. Considering that 26.6% of women workers are employed by businesses hiring fewer
\nthan 5 people, the Labor Standard Act currently only applicable to workplaces with 5 or more
\nemployees need to be revised to benefit all workers.
\n2-2. Human Rights for Victims of Domestic Violence and Punishment of Aggressors
\nVictims of domestic violence are not fully protected in Korea despite their rights to be safe
\nagainst aggression (under Final Comment No. 11 in 88th Session of UN Human Rights
\nCommittee), to choose a place to live as a human being and to lead a stable life. This is
\nbecause i) violence at home is culturally a matter of privacy, ii) legal and institutional safeguards
\nfor the victims are poor, iii) the awareness is low in the police, iv) the aggressor is often allowed
\nto stays at home while the victim is driven away under the existing legal system, and v) public
\nservices focus on counseling for the victims rather than punishment of the perpetrators,
\nresulting in only 14.9% of prosecution among the arrested for domestic violence in 2003. Now
\nrelevant authorities must put more efforts on i) a campaign to raise awareness that domestic
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\nviolence is a crime, ii) appropriate injunction based on judgment of danger the harmer puts on
\nthe victim, and iii) guarantee of security for the victim.
\n2-3. Overall Revision of the Health Family Act
\nThe Health Family Act seems to emphasize \u201cFamily\u201d in its English title, but the Korean
\nequivalent connotes \u201cHealthy Home\u201d, dividing \u201chealthy homes\u201d and \u201cunhealthy homes\u201d. The act
\nsuggests that a traditional family with a couple of man and woman and their children is healthy
\nwhile other family types are not, creating discrimination against the untraditional families. In
\nparticular, Article 3 stipulates that a family can be formed only by marriage, blood relationship
\nand adoption. The law must be revised because it excludes cohabitation, foster family, unwed
\nparenthood or other non-traditional families.
\n2-4. Revision of Civil Law for Joint Ownership and Fair Split of Community Property
\nAmong Korean couples, 76.2% register their homes in husband\u2019s name, and when couples file
\na divorce only 20 ~ 40% wives leave marriage with at least some asset. It is widely believed that
\nfinancial control must belong to men, breadwinners, while women\u2019s caring labor are not valued,
\ntherefore, women have no say for property. In consideration of such reality, civil law needs to be
\namended to guarantee women community property and property split during marriage.
\n2-5. Legal Revision for More Political Representation of Women
\nKorean women\u2019s participation in political activities is at the lowest level in the world as the
\nnational assembly had had fewer than 10 women lawmakers until 17th election, which produced
\nseats for 43 women. However, among them, only 10 were elected while the rest obtained
\nuncontested seats guaranteed in proportion to votes their parties garner. The figures show that
\nthe country is far from fair representation of women under the current political environment.
\nHowever, it is unavoidable that women have to seek their political position mainly from
\nproportion representation rather than constituent contest polls for a while. Such representation
\nalso can be used as an important tool to change Korea\u2019s political landscape marred by
\nregionalism and to initiate a reform so that parties more focus on policies. Currently, a bill to
\nquota 30% of elected seats to women is only collecting dust in the assembly.
\n2-6. More Support for Families with Single Mothers
\nWomen lead 21.9% of all Korean households and they account for 24% of all women workers.
\nOut of such families with single mothers, 21% live in poverty line, 3 times higher than such poor
\nfamilies with male breadwinners. Therefore, financial aid for poor families with one or two
\nmembers needs to become realistic and to focus particularly, on medical treatment, housing,
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\neducation and other areas where poor women need most assistance. In addition, considering
\nthat though single mothers are highly motivated to work they remain poor, the support for such
\nwomen should go to childcare, education for children, housing, medical services, job
\nopportunities and basic household expenses during vocational training period. This will help
\nthose women get out of poverty and policies design to help those women have more effect.
\n2-7. Mandatory & Comprehensive Training for Women\u2019s Human Rights
\nDespite laws and regulations against sexual violence, victim\u2019s rights are not fully protected
\n(Refer to Table 1) due to low awareness of women\u2019s human rights among the public. An effort to
\nimprove the situation requires training among teachers educating the next generations, police
\nofficers investigating sexual violence, lawyers enforcing applicable laws and other relevant
\nexperts. Even though laws are created to prevent domestic violence, sexual assault and human
\ntrafficking and to punish aggressors, they are not sufficiently enforced. Classes on human rights
\nat schools remain perfunctory. More efforts are needed to encourage schools to provide
\neducation badly needed to prevent violence and to enhance human rights. Human right
\neducation needs to be more comprehensive to meet various needs: prevention of violence
\nagainst women, improvement of awareness of gender equality, etc.
\n2-8. Gender-sensitive Perspective in Policies for Women with Disability and Better
\nSupport for Those Women
\nWomen with disability are different from their male counterparts in terms of gender, severity\/
\ntype of disability, age and socioeconomic status. However, policies for the disabled are genderblind
\nand designed to treat men and women alike. In order to resolve problems associated with
\ndisabled women and to prevent their status from deteriorating, relevant policies and programs
\nmust consider and accommodate unique needs of the women. Their quality of life needs to be
\nimproved with various socioeconomic considerations and more effective laws and regulations.
\nFurthermore, lack of education is a root cause of limitations in choice of jobs, discrimination and
\ninequality in personal wealth, social status and marriage and lifelong poverty. Therefore,
\neducation must become mandatory for such women and different education opportunities need
\nto be provided across life cycle of the women: i.e. basic education, classes to prepare public
\neducation eligibility test, capability-enhancing training, etc. (Refer to Table 2)
\n2-9. Elimination of Discrimination against Migrant Women Who Arrive in Korea for
\nMarriage or Job Opportunities
\n120,000 foreign women who migrate to Korea suffer from unfair wages, lack of maternity
\nprotection, poor housing and little right to health. Despite such violation of human rights, those
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\nwomen decide to remain silent in fear of being deported. Women from third countries married to
\nKorean men amount to around 120,000. They often have different skin color and ethnicity, and
\ncame form poorer countries, suffering from racial, class and gender discrimination. In addition,
\n50,000 kids of foreign wives and women workers are deprived of schooling on the ground of
\nmixed blood.
\nApplicable laws need to be amended to guarantee foreign women access to legal procedures
\nregardless of legality of their entry into Korea. Stay must be guaranteed for foreign victims of
\nsex violence so that they can recover from the violence, and livelihood and medical treatment
\nalso need to be provided to those women over the period. Fraudulent marriage for a trafficking
\npurpose by marriage brokers should be cracked down on, stay should be allowed for divorced
\nforeign women due to their spouse\u2019s abuse and foreign divorcees should be given rights to live
\nin Korea and job opportunities so that they will not fall into the trap of tracking. If migrant women
\nare admitted to public shelters for battered women, basic livelihood support needs to be
\nprovided, at least partially, if they are not Korean citizens. The women workers, though
\nundocumented, should be allowed to form or join a labor union and their children, opportunities
\nfor higher education, regardless of the status of their stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Korean Women’s Association United (KWAU) Review of Korea Women\u2019s Human Rights 1. Introduction As a former CEO and candidate of an opposition party won the 17th presidential election of South […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2153],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-ngo-voices"],"yoast_head":"\n