o National Human Rights Commission of Korea hereby releases Chairperson’s Statement to notify the concluding observation by the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women on the 8th state report of Republic of Korea on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and to urge for complete implementation of recommendations.
o The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, a bill of rights of women, is one of the most fundamental and important human rights instruments, which was adopted in December 1979 by the UN GA and took effect in September 1981. Korea joined the Convention in 1984, and as of December 2017, 189 nations have joined the Convention.
o Korea, as a State Party to the Convention, submitted state reports to the Committee for 8 times, every 4 years, since it first submitted a state report in 1986. The concluding observation is the result of the 69th session hosted on February 22 on the 8th state report submitted in July 2015. It is an evaluation of international community on the implementation status of the Convention in Korea since the last concluding observation seven years ago in 2011.
o The Committee, in its concluding observation, positively evaluated the Multicultural Families Support Act, revised in 2017, designed to aid migrant women in creating social support networks, the Framework Act on Gender Equality in 2014, the Act on the Prevention of Sexual Assault and Protection, etc. of Victims Thereof, revised in 2012 and 2014, and the Labour Standards Act revised in 2012 and 2014.
o However, the Committee presented 53 concerns and recommendations in 23 specific areas.
o Committee especially expressed its concern that despite NHRCK’s recommendation in 2006 and 2016 to the government a comprehensive anti-discrimination act is not enacted and a separate law on the prevention of discrimination based on gender has not been enacted since the repeal of the Gender Discrimination Prevention and Relief Act in 2005. It once again recommended to enact a comprehensive anti-discrimination act that prohibits direct and indirect discrimination against women and intersecting forms of discrimination affecting disadvantaged groups of women such as, women with disabilities, stateless and migrant women and rural women.
o In particular, the Committee requested the government to provide, within two years, written information on steps taken to implement the recommendations of enactment of a comprehensive anti-discrimination act, amendment to the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment etc. of Sex Crimes, enactment to the E-6-2 Visa, and strengthen prevention of online sexual violence crimes, emphasizing urgency of those recommendations.
o Most of the concluding observations are in line with the recommendations made by NHRCK to the government. NHRCK welcomes that most of 26 list of issues in the independent report of NHRCK submitted to the Committee is included in the concluding observation.
o Meanwhile, the Committee recommended that the government allocate sufficient human, financial and technical resources to strengthen its functions regarding gender-based discrimination.
o In line with the ‘Me-too movement’, NHRCK will create a new team(sexual harassment rectification team) in May to comprehensively deal with human rights of women including investigation on complaint related to power-based sexual harassment, ex-officio investigation, fact-finding research, and policy improvement recommendation and make its utmost efforts to implement the 8th concluding observation of the Committee. Lastly, NHRCK hereby urges the government to make effort to resolve the concern of and implement recommendation of the Committee, thereby brining about complete implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
