Guest post by Grace Poore, Regional coordinator, Asia and the Pacific Islands, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
The Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council in Seoul, Korea has singled out sexual orientation and gender identity for exclusion from the draft bill of Seoul Students Rights Ordinance that can become law on December 19 in Korea’s capital city unless human rights activists manage to delay the bill or change the minds of the Education Committee. If passed, the Students Rights Ordinance will be the first initiative to explicitly protect students’ rights in Korea.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has sent an urgent letter (below) to the Korean Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council calling for reinstatement of the removed protections for LGBT students.
The letter states:
“By singling out sexual orientation and gender identity for exclusion, the Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council and the Seoul Metropolitan Council would contravene international human rights standards and state obligations that South Korea has agreed to uphold. These include rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The actions of the Seoul Metropolitan Council and its Education Committee contradict the recent vote by the Government of the Republic of Korea in favor of Resolution 17/19 with regard to “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 2011. The resolution, which the government supported, “expressed “grave concerns at acts of violence and discrimination against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”
I spoke with Jiyhe Kim, a member of Common Action for Sexual Minority Students in Seoul, and she explained that the initial draft developed by the Resident Initiative Movement (and signed by 97,702 residents of Seoul) contained protections for vulnerable and marginalized students, such as students with disabilities, of lower economic status, who were pregnant, of different racial backgrounds and who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
The initial draft included four clauses which specifically protect LGBT youth:
Article 6 Right to Nondiscrimination states:
“Students have the right not to be discriminated based on sex, religion, age, social status, regional, national, or ethnic origin, language, disability, physical condition including appearance, pregnancy or birth, family type or family status, race, economic status, color, ideological or political opinion, sexual orientation, gender identity, medical history, discipline, grade, and others.”
Article 13 addresses Freedom of Privacy and Right to Privacy Protection and included the right to protection of personal information, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Article 20: Right to School Welfare calls for prioritizing the allocation of budget and other resources for students who have difficulties in realizing their rights due to economic, social, and cultural reasons, including sexual minority students. Article 28 Requires that the Rights of Minority Students be ensured including… sexual minority students.
When the Ordinance draft became public, conservative Christian parents groups attacked the Committee through emails, text messages and telephone calls—particularly opposing the inclusion of LGBT students and pregnant students. Swayed by this reaction, the Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council deleted Article 6 altogether with the explanation that a general anti-discrimination clause will be sufficient, and removed sexual minority students from Article 28 as designated minority students.
Jihye Kim explains, “If the Student Rights Ordinance does not include sexual orientation and gender identity as a protected category, mistreatment of LGBT youth in Korea will be justified. And they will be targeted for intensified discrimination and bullying.” She says that data gathered by Common Action for Sexual Minority Students shows that LGBT students in Korea are violently punished and suspended by teachers and school principals; are disparaged by their teachers in classrooms; sent to psychological counseling; forced to transfer to different schools; and more likely to commit suicide.
She adds, “The significance of the Seoul Students Rights Ordinance cannot be overemphasized. Seoul is not just the capital of Korea but also the center of everything in my country. A negative outcome now would send a dangerous message to schools in the rest of the country. And it would further delay the possibility of a national anti-discrimination law that would protect LGBT people.”
On December 14, Common Action for Sexual Minority Students began a twenty-four hour sit-in[i] at the building that houses the Seoul Metropolitan Council—the body that will decide the draft ordinance into law. http://www.newscham.net/news/
Lawyers, human rights activists and youth have currently joined the protest. They have also circulated a petition internationally, urging the Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council to restore the initial inclusive draft of the Students Rights Ordinance.
South Korea has ratified numerous human rights treaties at the United Nations and most recently voted in favor of Resolution 17/19 Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on June 2011.
On December 8, 2011, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon declared in a message to a panel held at the UN on Ending Bullying on The Basis of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity that he was “dismayed by reports of children all over the world, as young as eleven, suffering “verbal abuse, taunting and serious physical attacks because of their presumed sexual orientation or gender identity… bullying of this kind affects young people all the way through to adulthood, causing enormous and unnecessary suffering… We often think about homophobic bullying as a problem specific to school settings and adolescence. But the roots go deeper; they lie in prevailing harmful attitudes in society at large, sometimes encouraged by divisive public figures and discriminatory laws and practices sanctioned by State authorities.”
Jihye Kim laments that “because of the language barrier, messages from the UN hardly come into the lives of Korean people. That’s why the government of Korea can pretend to be an advocate of human rights for all, including LGBT people. The situation is not promising , but we won’t give up. ” She says, “The mother of an LGBT youth visited the site of our protest and gave a moving supportive speech. And she delivered a statement signed by 896 Christians that says they support our cause.”
For further information and background visit the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) of the United Nations.
Contact Grace Poore via email.
Seoul Student Rights Ordinance
Friends:
We invite you to sign up for our new mailing list, and subscribe to The New Civil Rights Movement via email or RSS.
Also, please like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter!
{ 8 comments }
Part 1)
(Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
As the first and only American transgender person that I know of working in South Korea as an English teacher, I feel compelled to speak about my own experiences as a person that has been victimized by similar abusive acts of bigotry to what Yie Eun-woong and the Anti-English Spectrum is engaged in. I have been working as a teacher in South Korea for about four and half years. I have come to Korea with much teaching experience and a graduate degree and education from, yes, one of the top three universities in America for my major. I am the longest serving and most senior level native English speaking teacher in the county of my employ. I have consistently received impeccable teacher evaluation each year I have been at my job.
Part 2)
(Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
For the first three years of my job, I have truly had a fabulous working relationship with my co-workers and with the administrators of my program, and really loved my students and work. This all changed abruptly, immediately following the program being taken over by a new administrative staff, and them hiring a completely new group of co-teachers in my program. My former co-workers were all replaced with fundamentalist Christians who lived in the community near the school I worked in. One of which was the wife of a local conservative evangelical Christian minister of a very large church in the very small town I worked in. I went from hero to zero, overnight!
Part 3) (Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
At about this time, I began to notice shocking and frightening intrusions into my privacy, all occurring around the time, one of my co-teachers began telling me that I was angry at her, and that she was frightened of me!!!! Further, this co-teacher began to ask me usual personal questions about my private life and background that was not in the context of our relationship and that she had no official need to know. I remember her becoming angry with me because I could not give her the zip code to my former American address that I long forgot!!! Her then becoming angry, once again, because I renewed my visa at the Korean immigrations office that I have been going to for the last four years, instead of going to the immigrations office she wanted me to go to.
Part 4)
(Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
The first thing that I noticed that was wrong was that things in my apartment were out of place, the frightened behavior of my little toy puddle puppy dog when I returned home from work, and that my personal papers and documents were searched and tampered with. Then, I noticed that many of my private documents regarding my personal history and background that qualified me for my teaching job in Korea were taken. I then noticed the memory disk of my digital camera that had some private and intimate photos of me was missing.
Part 5)
(Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
I began to get many harassing phone calls, the rear tire on my motor bike was flattened nine times within a few months, the lock on the storage compartment of the motorbike was broken, my garbage was searched and picked throw, my e-mails accounts were hacked and tampered with, my e-mail address was used as an user name to post things on the Internet that would, at the very least, cause suspicion about me, my handbag was entered and its content was repeatedly tampered with and items were taken, my international phone card was stolen from my handbag while at work, my personal property at work was tampered with in such a way to deliberately remind me of these intrusions and to further frighten and harass me.
Part 6) (Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
On one occasion, as I entered my work place, and I discovered a clump of my light brown hair, hanging from the entrance light switch. I am the only westerner with light brown hair at my job. I began to notice the presence of the local police doing unusual and unlikely times and places. I was told by my local doctor that one of my co-teachers, and my supervisor came to his office with the local police demanding to see my medical files. I was stopped and questioned at the local train station about why I was there and where I was going. These things all began, from what I was told by a human rights investigator, after another native English speaking teacher in the small town I worked in outed me to my new Korean co-teachers.
Part 7) (Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
When I attempted to report these issues to my co-teachers, they became very angry and accused me of making them up and called me a lyre. On one occasion, one of my co-teachers, angrily demanded that I go to the police with her, not to report the harassment, but because I had made a false accusation. When I attempted, in a frightened and intimidated manner, to report what was happening to my supervisor, I was treated not as a victim, but as a whistle blower attempting to cause trouble. My superior’s response to my request for help was; “that someone needed to be fired”. There was absolutely no attempt by my co-teachers or superior to aid me in any way. There was just an unexplained angry, defensive and reactionary response. I remember on one occasion, going to work, and discovering that I was locked out. I have always had the keys to my work place. On this occasion, my co-worker had a cable type of bicycle lock tide around the handles of the entrance doors.
Part 8) (Gurye English Town) Sparkling Korea bristles with homophobia and bigotry
These and many other things, all occurred in an environment of xenophobia, suspicion, passive aggression, and increasing anti social behavior towards me on the part of my co-teachers. When I sought help from outside Korean advocacy and human rights groups, I received little to no support, and this only inflamed the situation even further. I was told by the human rights organization that I contacted that they could not do anything because what was happening to me was a criminal, not a human rights issue!!!!
My co-teacher’s behavior was no longer limited to passive aggression, but now it was, in your face, overt anger and hostility. Subsequently, this same co-teacher, threatened, for whatever reasons, (possibly believing that she had dug up some dirt on me) to report me to the Korean Immigration’s Office and the United States Embassy!!! Although, my work record has been exceptional and I have received very favorable teacher evaluations since I started this job, my job has been placed in great jeopardy and there is almost an absolute certainty that my employment contract for next year will not be renewed!!!
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 2 trackbacks }