Persons with Disabilities in Korea Still Fighting Against Discrimination - Reflection on the International Day of Pers

Written by CheolKyun Park (Event Team, ISC)

Translated by TaeEun Shim (Translation Team, ISC)

Edited by Matthew Phillips(Content Team, ISC)

December 3, 2024 marks the 32nd International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which was officially designated in 1992 to commemorate the adoption of the global disability action plan by the 37th United Nations General Assembly (December 3, 1982). 31 years ago, the first International Day of Persons with Disabilities began with people with disabilities all around the world seizing the microphone from politicians on the stage and trying to make their voices heard. It was meant to reproach politicians for having looked the other way in relation to the rights of the disabled and to resist widespread attitudes embodying mere pity taking.

In Korea, the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD) and progressive disability groups have been waging a struggle every year marking the International Day of Persons with Disabilities despite the cold weather, alongside the struggle they wage specifically on April 20, the Day of Eliminating Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities. The reason is that society still sees people with disabilities as subjects of pity and as parasites to society leading to discrimination. The Korean government signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2008, but it still hasn’t fully protected the rights of the disabled as stated in the CRPD.

The CRPD states that people with disabilities have the rights to travel, work, education, and to live in communities, not prison-like care facilities among others. Unfortunately, Korea’s low-entry bus adoption rate still hovers at around 32%. Special taxis for the disabled were introduced as an alternative to the less-accessible existing public transportation, but you have to wait up to 3 hours to take the taxi. There was a pilot project for intercity buses to accommodate wheelchair users, but in reality, not a single such bus is running. People with disabilities are often denied boarding on an airplane due to their electric wheelchairs. Problems are compounded even if they do get onboard, as they cannot use the in-flight toilet.

The right to education for the disabled is not fully protected. Only 51.6% of people with disabilities completed middle school education, only 20% of disabled students go to universities, and a mere 0.2% of the disabled engage in life-long education. As for the right to work, only mundane and repetitive work is assigned to people with disabilities, and policies are business-oriented. Even worse, those jobs often do not even pay minimum wage.

Protesters are chanting their slogans at a rally in front of the Seoul City Council calling for rejecting the abolition of support for deinstitutionalization of the disabled. (Source: Beminor)

Against this backdrop, the disability rights movement called for ‘rights-centered public jobs tailored to people with severe disabilities’, and such public jobs have been created throughout the nation. However, the Seoul city government made egregious claims such as “the SADD forcefully mobilizes those with severe disabilities to illegal protests,” or “taxpayers’ money is used in vain” only to convert these jobs to simple production work from July 1, 2023 and to ultimately abolish them. As a result, 400 workers with the most severe disabilities were laid off in December 2023.

The special delegation had a die-in protest at a subway station in Paris on August 29th. (Source: Beminor)

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities General Comment no. 5, Article 19 (Living independently and being included in the community), and Article 14 (Liberty and security of person) of the CRPD clearly state that ‘all human rights and basic freedom of persons with disabilities’ should be protected. Korea signed the CRPD and has a seat on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, but the right to deinstitutionalization is not fully implemented. Every year, we see violence against people with disabilities living in care institutions, as well as untimely deaths in these same institutions. However, the Korean government is not implementing the right deinstitutionalization policies, and the parliamentarians together with the Seoul city government and supporters of such institutions spread malicious rumors, mischaracterizing the situation by saying that “deinstitutionalized” people with disabilities lost their lives because they were not properly “protected”, thereby undermining the rights of the disabled who want to live in communities, rather than an institution.

Press conference in front of Seoul High Court. The banner reads “Press conference on the ruling by the court of appeal on the violence and death in an unregistered institution in Pyeongtaek damage suit”. (Source: Beminor)

In hopes that people with disabilities will live together in community, the Korean disability movement has continued to protest at a subway station in the morning since December 3, 2021. However, the Yoon Seokyeol government, Seoul Mayor Oh Sehoon, and politicians such as Lee Junseok call SADD’s non-violent disobedience activism as “illegal” and “social terrorism”, suppressing the movement. Every morning at a subway platform, activists face brutal and violent eviction by Seoul Metro staff in their brave confronting of police while demanding their constitutional rights be respected and duly met. When activists try to get on a subway, Seoul Metro staff rush to the gate to block the entry. The party whose duty is to ensure the basic rights to assembly and association suppresses those rights because they “don’t like the way the movement is acting”. Now, the Seoul city government kicks SAAD and human rights activists out because they don’t want them standing at a platform even with a small card.

SAAD Director Park Kyeongseok on his 100th ‘crawling protest’ (Source: SAAD)

Still, the Korean disability movement cannot give up their struggle, the struggle to live in a community as equals. That’s why they go to the subway station though they are ‘forcefully driven out’, why they raise their voices on the streets, and why they push for the enactment and revision of laws related to the rights of the disabled.

On December 3, 2024, the Korean disability movement will have a 2-day long protest. December is a crucial political month in Korea because this is customarily when important discussions around the government budget and legislation happen. They call for the enactment of seven disability rights laws (Act on Guarantee of Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Act on Promotion of the Transportation Convenience of Mobility Disadvantaged Persons, Special Act on Supporting Jobs Focusing on Disability Rights, Act on Persons with Developmental Disabilities, Act on Guarantee of Rights of Independent Life of Persons with Disabilities, Act on Life-long Learning of Persons with Disabilities, Act on Special Education) to achieve institutional changes, and demand a commensurate budget for those laws to ensure their full implementation.