United Nations Rules that South Korea Discriminates Against Foreign English Teachers

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:

One of my favorite Anti-English Spectrum cartoons from 2005.
One of my favorite Anti-English Spectrum cartoons from 2005.

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:

ie Eun-woong, volunteer manager of the Seoul-based Anti-English Spectrum

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.

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JoeC
JoeC
9 years ago

The earlier Korean Herald article linked to here (from 2013) points out that there has been some confusion over the past few years about whether the official requirement for HIV testing had been rescinded and for whom:

A Justice Ministry spokesman confirmed on Monday that one-time testing for immigration purposes was still in place, after earlier claiming the ministry had no such requirement.

An official with Korea Immigration Service, a division of the Justice Ministry, however, also said there had been no change in policy.

“We have not changed any of our policies on HIV testing,” Lee You-jin, a member of the residence and visa division of KIS, said via email on Nov. 19.

In follow-up correspondence after publication, however, she claimed that all Korean public servants were required to take the same test, as part of a general health checkup. Accordingly, she said that such a policy could not be regarded as discrimination.

One of several hospitals that list HIV testing for foreigners separately from the general public servant health check on their websites, however, said there was no such requirement for Korean government employees.

In 2010, the government lifted its general entry ban on most HIV-positive foreign nationals, followed later that year by the scrapping of mandatory testing of unskilled laborers and those on so-called “entertainment visas.” The E-6 entertainment visa has long been associated with prostitution.

Mandatory testing for native English teachers, however, was maintained.

tbonetylr
tbonetylr
9 years ago

“Some foreign English teachers had made some derogatory comments about Korean women on the English Spectrum website that some Korean netizen noticed.”

How do you know it was “foreign English teachers?” It would take less for someone to act as such on a website than someone to dress up like a soldier and successfully pretend to be one on the street. I’d be surprised if a U.S. servicemember hasn’t pretended to be an English teacher off base without an E-2 visa and yet got paid to teach English to Koreans. There was even once a wife of a U.S. Ambassador to S. Korea who pretended to be an English teacher. How difficult would it have been for Chickenhead the contractor to pretend he was an English teacher and make “derogatory comments about Korean women”? English Spectrum advertised party here/there in Itaewon where servicemembers(and maybe even a contractor or two) were abundant.

Salim
Salim
9 years ago

This is great, but what about the real racial discrimination issue when it comes to hiring foreign English teachers–blacks, browns and even non-Korean Asians have a hard time getting hired by Korean schools.

tbonetylr
tbonetylr
9 years ago

“but what about the real racial discrimination issue when it comes to hiring foreign English teachers–blacks, browns and even non-Korean Asians have a hard time getting hired by Korean schools.”

Believe it or not “blacks, browns and even non-Korean Asians” aren’t discounted in this U.N. decision/conclusion. And the “blacks, browns and even non-Korean Asians” issue has been mentioned before by the UN Special Rapporteur(s).

But sure “Salim” the racial discrimination mentioned by the U.N. isn’t “real.” EGGHEAD, is “Salim” really you? If so or not, a typical apologist attitude! What does “Salim” do, does “Salim” work in S. Korea? Help us out here “Salim” and maybe we can suggest what you should do to help you or your cause out. Are you a servicemember? If so then maybe you should contact your gov’t because it helps “servicemembers” more than English teachers. This decision by the U.N. was made after much hard work(READ) from individuals, not the USA government.

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
9 years ago

I know a gay English teacher. He LIKED the mandatory HIV test.

He said it gave him peace of mind if he was shotgunning some other teacher’s steaming man-goo or taking a hot splooge bareback colon wash.

Actually, I might be paraphrasing. I don’t recall him going much beyond the peace of mind part… but we all get the idea.

Jigoku
Jigoku
9 years ago

I met a guy a few years ago that said he knew the person that wrote that crap about Korean girls a few years ago and he wasn’t an Englishee teacher, he was a white dude from the US studying at Yonsei. Whether or not it’s true, it just shows you Koreans are not happy unless they have someone/group to hate.

They love to hate, they even teach little kids in school to hate Japanese people for what “they have done to Korea” etc…

BKW
BKW
9 years ago

Nice post GIKorea. You are right on point with the comparison between the US GIs and foreign English teachers. That’s actually a major part of a paper that Matt and I put together explaining part of the “why” of the tests, which were never about HIV or drugs or public health or teaching English, but just a way for the ROK to assert its sovereignty and its (imagined) national identity (as uniquely drug-free, AIDS-free, extra-moral, not like those foreigners, etc.).

Leaving aside the obvious concerns over human rights abuses for a moment, it is worth remarking on how the successful implementation of E-2 visa requirements has provided clear confirmation of the government’s jurisdiction to prescribe and enforce HIV restrictions for foreigners on its territory. As such, for nationalists they likely represent a significant victory for the ROK’s exercise of sovereign authority over foreigners in Korea. In the late 1980s, at a time when it was asserted that US soldiers were “bringing AIDS and drug abuse” to Korea, the popular movement to impose mandatory HIV tests on USFK in order to “expel AIDS” and “low quality American culture” failed because “U.S soldiers under the mandate of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) [were] out of the reach” of legislative efforts.

The popular movement that sprung up on the Internet in 2005, which would coalesce into the Citizens’ Group, similarly called for the expulsion of “low-quality foreign teachers [and] vulgar foreign culture” and would eventually connect foreign teachers to AIDS and drugs. Foreign teachers, however, are unlike foreign soldiers in that they are without any SOFA-like extraterritorial protections. Thus, in choosing to focus its efforts on foreign teachers, the Citizens’ Group’s movement was able to accomplish what earlier groups had failed to achieve: mandatory HIV tests and deportations targeted at a group of non-Korean men (the majority of whom were American) residing in Korea who were seen as acting with impunity and treating Korean women with contempt. There is little doubt the members of the group view such an accomplishment as significant progress in the “restoration of sovereignty and national pride.”

At the height of the Hongdae photo scandal, members of the Anti-English Spectrum cafe suggested forming an offline “Yankee counter strike force” that would target not only the “foreigners who threw the promiscuous party” but would also urge members to “[i]mmediately punish U.S. soldiers discovered in the Sinchon area who act disrespectfully toward Koreans.”

These calls to “take direct action” and strike at the “Yankee bastards” were severe enough to attract the attention of the U.S. Embassy, which took note of “a strong reaction in the form of web postings threatening attacks in the vicinity of Hongik University and the Sinchon area against Americans and other foreigners who speak English” and issued a warning of “potential threats” in those areas. Such warnings by the U.S. Embassy had in the past referred to protests against U.S. military forces, but this warning was unique in that it extended not only to U.S. soldiers and Americans but also to “other foreigners who speak English.” Through the efforts of the Citizens’ Group this generalized animus toward such English speaking foreigners would become focused on so-called “native speaker” English teachers (woneomin) and would eventually result in specific sanctions against E-2 visa holders in the form of mandatory in-country HIV and drug tests.” [pages 223-225]

There is more, specifically on how blood nationalism and the ideas of collective responsibility figure into this, for those interested in reading please see (p. 225) “HIV/AIDS Tests as a Proxy for Racial Discrimination? A Preliminary Investigation of South Korea’s Policy of Mandatory In-Country HIV/AIDS Tests for its Foreign English Teachers”. http://s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/85184/1/03_BK%20Wagner_OK.pdf

setnaffa
setnaffa
9 years ago

Yie sounds like a real nice guy. Someone who really cares about children. /sarc

tbonetylr
tbonetylr
9 years ago

@7 BKW…”You are right on point with the comparison between the US GIs and foreign English teachers.”

I don’t see the GI Korea “comparison”? Wherever(?) it was, the “comparison” was difficult to spot and was certainly overcome by GI Korea’s following statement…”It all began in 2005 when English Spectrum-gate occurred.”

It DID NOT all begin in 2005! If he had thought there was a “comparison” then he wouldn’t have made that statement.

@setnaffa…”Yie sounds like a real nice guy. Someone who really cares about children.”

“Yei” or ie Eun-woong, volunteer manager of the Seoul-based Anti-English Spectrum… not only “stalked or followed” English teachers but went through their garbage they placed on the street…in search of condoms etc…because using condoms is BAD ~ sign of bad “morals and values” since who else could these BAD English teachers be using those condoms with but Korean females(property of Korean males)? “ie Eun-woong” reminds me a bit about this Korean I once played tennis with(gave a whoopazz lesson) at an apartment complex in S. Korea and afterward I took a shower in its locker room…guess who couldn’t resist opening the shower door to check out my package?

ChickenHead
ChickenHead
9 years ago

In today’s episode of Answering Questions With Questions?

“who else could these BAD English teachers be using those condoms with but Korean females(property of Korean males)”

Other male English teachers before and after the mandatory HIV test?

“guess who couldn’t resist opening the shower door to check out my package?”

Somebody seeking disappointment?

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