Via a reader tip comes this interesting article over at Gusts of Popular Feeling that discusses a United Nations decision that ruled that South Korea was discriminating against foreign English teacher by requiring them to have HIV tests:
In late 2009 I posted here about a foreign teacher who was refusing to take second HIV test in order to renew her teaching contract at an elementary school in Ulsan. As a result she lost her job and left Korea, and with Benjamin Wagner representing her, complaints were filed with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (which rejected it) and Korean Commercial Arbitration Board (which ruled against her. Then in July 2012 it was announced that the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had agreed to hear the case, though not a single Korean media outlet chose to report on this despite receiving a press release from a PR firm. Given 90 days to reply, the ROK instead took 9 months to reply, stating that “since 2010, its guidelines on the employment of foreign teachers do not specify that [foreign teachers] have to submit results of HIV/AIDS and drugs tests to have their contracts renewed,” an assertion which I knew personally was not true (and which the Korea Herald looked at here). In 2010 the ROK had in fact officially removed all HIV tests for those registering for residency except for the E-2 visa tests.
In a journal article coauthored by Benjamin Wagner and myself, we asked in the title whether HIV tests were a proxy for racial discrimination, and this week the CERD answered that question: Yes. [Gusts of Popular Feeling]
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but unless you are a long time ROK Head you may not remember this issue. It all began in 2005 when English Spectrum-gate occurred. Some foreign English teachers had made some derogatory comments about Korean women on the English Spectrum website that some Korean netizen noticed. It soon exploded within the Korean Internet community who were able to take down the English Spectrum website. This did not stop the Korean netizen fury against what they believed to be unqualified foreign English teachers running around the country taking drugs and molesting Korean women. An Anti-English Spectrum group was formed that actually wanted to provoke incidents with foreigners in certain university areas in order to push them out. The movement against foreign English teachers got so bad it was reported in the LA Times:
Sometimes, in his off hours, Yie Eun-woong does a bit of investigative work.
He uses the Internet and other means to track personal data and home addresses of foreign English teachers across South Korea.
Then he follows them, often for weeks at a time, staking out their apartments, taking notes on their contacts and habits.
He wants to know whether they’re doing drugs or molesting children.
Yie, a slender 40-year-old who owns a temporary employment agency, says he is only attempting to weed out troublemakers who have no business teaching students in South Korea, or anywhere else.
The volunteer manager of a controversial group known as the Anti-English Spectrum, Yie investigates complaints by South Korean parents, often teaming up with authorities, and turns over information from his efforts for possible prosecution.
Outraged teachers groups call Yie an instigator and a stalker.
Yie waves off the criticism. “It’s not stalking, it’s following,” he said. “There’s no law against that.”
Since its founding in 2005, critics say, Yie’s group has waged an invective-filled nationalistic campaign against the 20,000 foreign-born English teachers in South Korea.
On their website and through fliers, members have spread rumors of a foreign English teacher crime wave. They have alleged that some teachers are knowingly spreading AIDS, speculation that has been reported in the Korean press. [LA Times]
The controversy led the Korean government to order a crackdown against foreign English teachers. The crackdown got so bad I felt compelled to offer my advice to English teachers on how to blend in as a US GI. I have to admit that I did take some pleasure in that since back then expat English teachers used to regularly complain about GIs until they got a dose of how isolated incidents are used by the Korean media to slime an entire population.
The anti-English Spectrum group was eventually able to lobby to get laws passed in 2007 to make it harder to get an E2 visa which is how the HIV testing came about. I would have no problems with more stringent requirements for teaching English in Korea if all teachers were subjected to the same requirements because I am sure there are many of unqualified Korean teachers teaching students in Korea as well.
The UN ruling has been published in the Korea Times:
This is racial discrimination,” an English teacher from Northern Ireland, who refused to be named, said. “Why should only white, American and European people be subject to this? There is an insinuation here that white people are more promiscuous, and more inclined to take drugs than Korean people.
“If you want to protect young students, then you test everybody for drugs and HIV. Not just foreigners.”
Sarah Abendroth, who teaches English in Seoul, agreed saying, “It would be fine if the test is required for both Korean and English teachers.
“A lot of people feel it’s an invasion of privacy and it perpetuates the stereotype of foreigners being ‘loose,'” she noted.
Korea has a history of restricting global trends to abolish discrimination.
It joined the international convention on CERD in 1978.
In its ruling, the U.N. committee called Korea’s HIV testing policy an act of racism.
“The mandatory testing policy limited to foreign English teachers, who are not ethnically Korean, does not appear to be justified on public health grounds or any other grounds, and is a breach of the right to work without distinction of race, color, national or ethnic origin,” it said.
The committee called on the Korean government to grant adequate compensation for the mental and material damages she suffered. It also urged the government to abolish the law that is “discriminatory and an affront to her dignity.” [Korea Times]
What I find probably of the most interest in this ruling is not whether the Korean government will end the HIV testing but whether they will offer compensation to foreign English teachers. That would have to be a hefty bill to offer compensation to every English teacher that was forced to comply with discriminatory laws since 2007. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but I have a feeling the law will probably just be quietly removed at some point and no compensation will be offered.