The issue of foreign English teachers being forced to take a HIV test before gaining employment in Korea has come up again:
One of my favorite cartoons from the English Spectrum-gate timeframe.
To teach English in Korea, Christina had to prove she was not HIV-positive.
The US citizen was reluctant, but complied with the rule, undergoing a blood test for HIV and submitting the results to local authorities in order to get a job at a public school.
When she found out that Korean and Korean-American teachers at the school were exempted from the test despite doing the same job, she was offended.
“It perpetuates perceptions of foreigners as dirty, dangerous and impure. I think it is discriminatory and xenophobic,” said Christina, who first came to Korea in 2010 and now teaches in Gwangju.
“It also perpetuates stereotypes about HIV and the people who have it,” she told The Korea Herald.
For nearly a decade, South Korea has made it mandatory for foreigners wishing to work here to undergo blood tests for HIV, rejecting those found to be HIV-positive.
This policy, introduced in 2007 after complaints from locals over “dangerous law-breaking foreigners,” including English teachers, may come to an end soon, as the government is considering a recent recommendation by the country’s human rights panel to do away with it.
“The Justice Ministry is collecting opinions from relevant ministries such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to decide whether to accept the recommendation,” it said in response to an inquiry by The Korea Herald.
A recommendation of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea is not legally binding, but the government must decide whether to accept it within 90 days. In this case, the deadline is Dec. 7. [Korea Herald]
You can read much more at the link, but over at Gusts of Popular Feeling there is a good run down on the history of the HIV testing law.
For those who are not long time readers of the ROK Drop the passing of the mandatory HIV testing law had nothing to do with concerns about HIV or drugs. It began in 2005 when English Spectrum-gate occurred. Some foreign English teachers made derogatory comments about Korean women on the English Spectrum website that a Korean netizen noticed. It soon exploded within the Korean Internet community who rallied to take down the webpage. However, the taking down of English Spectrum 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 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. 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. Since then the Korean government has faced accusations of discrimination, but have refused to revoke the HIV testing law. It looks like within the next few weeks we will know if South Korea will continue to enforce this discriminatory law.
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:
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.
I have been reading with amusement the current English teacher “scandal” in the Korean media reported here and then translated by Robert here. I say with amusement because it was all that long ago when US soldiers were looked down upon by the ex-pat English teacher crowd as giving them a bad image in Korea and aloe and be hold the tables have turned and the ex-pat English teacher crowd is giving us US soldiers a bad image. Especially with the latest “scandal” coming on the heels of last year’s Spectrum-gate “scandal”.
I can remember a few years back during my first tour in Korea a Canadian English teacher I met, yes in Itaewon, asked me why US soldiers were so misbehaved in Korea giving everyone else a bad name. I of course had to explain to this person that if you put a bunch of horny 18-21 year olds in a over sexed environment like Korea combined with unlimited amounts of alcohol, plus being away from home for the first time, what do think is going to happen? Boot camp doesn’t create asexual people who don’t want to drink.
It doesn’t matter where you are from young people are more obnoxious and get in trouble, it doesn’t matter if you are a GI, a English teacher, or a Korean for that fact. Ex-pats in a bar focus on the same obnoxious 18-21 year olds in the bars they frequent every weekend and not the majority of soldiers minding their own business in local bars or back on post calling their families in the US they haven’t seen in months and other people minding their own business in their room playing Playstation for example.
USFK currently has about 28,000 soldiers in it so of course there are going to be a few bad apples that cause problems and when problems do occur the Korean media sensationalizes it and it wasn’t to long ago that many ex-pats bought into the bad GI crap as well when in fact young GI’s were acting very similar to young ex-pats; it was just back then nobody cared about ex-pats, now people do.
I don’t know how many English teachers are in Korea but I’m sure there are thousands and of course within those thousands there are going to be a few bad apples that slip through the cracks. Should all English teachers be painted with the same brush because of the few bad apples? Of course not. Probably the best response I have read from this current “scandal” is from the Metropolitician that is a MUST READ if you are remotely interested in this topic. The Metropolitician I believe correctly believes that the real problem is with the Korean educational system that makes it easier for bad apple English teachers to enter the country, however it is easier to blame the foreigners instead of looking at the systematic problems within the country including sexual abuse of students by Korean teachers as well.
Believe it or not I actually have some English teaching experience. I taught English once every two weeks for nearly a year to elementary students near my camp. The school relied on US soldiers to teach accent and conversational skills to the students because they had no hired foreign English teachers at the school. Having US GI’s come in allowed the school to save the money of hiring a foreign English teacher and it gave us a chance to hang out with the kids and interact with the community. I really enjoyed my time helping out there, but something I found interesting was the fact that the Korean teacher in charge of the English language instruction at the school with a university degree in English could hardly speak it.
I was pretty much dependent on my KATUSA to translate what she wanted to tell me. In fact one of the 10 year old students had lived in America for a few years and spoke better English than her. She could read and write just fine, but talking and listening to English she had very minimal skills. If university educated teachers in Korea cannot speak English is it any wonder why the country is dependent on the same foreign English teachers that are now the subject of such ridiculous scorn by the Korean media?
With all the hoopla over the current English teacher “scandal” these ex-pats can at least take solace in the fact they don’t have to worry about having curfews, off limits policies, lock down on post, no drinking, and other restrictions put on them whenever an incident happens, like what USFK does. So it could be worse if that makes anyone feel better. But on the other hand USFK has proven that these restrictions work because behavior of US soldiers has improved greatly compared to as little as five years ago.
It is amazing to me that even after a year since Spectrum-gate the anti-foreigner focus is still on English teachers. I thought for sure it would shift back to US GI’s or 3D workers or some other ethnic group. Anyway in the spirit of international cooperation, I still offer my friendly advice from last year of how to blend in as a GI for any English teacher out there on the run from the English teacher Gestapo. I said last year that I thought this all would blow over and it has yet to blow over so what do I know, but it is still amusing.
If you haven’t heard about the English Spectrum-gate scandal head over to to Marmot for all the latest updates. However, I can’t help but think this thing is getting way over blown. Now even the Korea Times is getting in on the Spectrum-gate scandal with this article by Mike Weisbart.
Koreans have never liked the Hermit Kingdom moniker. Especially in this epoch of globalization, they want to be seen as open and worldly, with emphasis on `open’ in particular, given their eagerness to showcase for the world their amazing successes and, in no small measure, counteract their infamous inferiority complex by proving to themselves that they finally have arrived.
True, there is so much to admire. Indeed, much to be jealous of. But you really have to wonder sometimes if Koreans are ready for the Big Stage. A couple of ugly incidents in the past few days might shake your faith.
The first takes the form of a diplomatic dispute between China and Korea playing out at the government level. The second is taking place much closer to the ground via an Internet campaign by those oft-talked-about Korean netizens, some of whom have called on their members to assault foreigners at popular night spots like Hongik University and the Sinchon area.
Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it? The problem got its start on a discussion board at a website catering to English teachers living and working here in Korea. Aside from providing info on job opportunities and Korean culture and travel, the website also operates discussion boards where people can discuss issues and, as is often the case, vent frustrations about their experiences in Korea.
Most of the talk is just innocuous griping and or uninformed Korea bashing. But in this case, some Korean netizens latched on to a particularly infantile posting by one foreigner who extolled the virtues of Korea by arguing how easy it is to have sex with Korean women. It didn’t take long for the conversation thread to be noticed by netizens. Angered by the perceived slight to the honor of their women, they inundated the English website and put it out of commission.
But they didn’t stop there. Soon, discussion boards at popular portal sites were being filled with talk about the incident. One board I read was bursting with comments like “let’s punish the foreign assholes,” followed by calls to beat up foreigners seen walking around holding hands with Korean women. And because everyone knows that foreigners all hang out in bars at Hong-dae and Sinchon, people were told to gather there and watch for offending waygook-in.
One fringe Korean news site went so far as to put up a grainy photo showing one of the many smoky night clubs where Koreans and foreigners often mix on the dance floor. Young Korean women figure prominently in the foreground so one can only surmise that this was supposed to enrage the already lathered-up netizens even more.
Now, the campaign has somehow morphed into a drive to force out all the unqualified English teachers. Note how the inferiority has turned to superiority.
Weisbart concludes the article with this:
It seems that Koreans employ a double standard when it comes to how foreigners are expected to behave here and how they themselves are allowed to act outside the country. The incident in China shows a startling lack of sensitivity and, given the Chinese claims that the lawmakers had held an illegal press conference, Koreans should consider themselves lucky their representatives weren’t detained.
As I write this, there is thankfully no news that any foreigners were attacked on Saturday night. We’ll have to wait and see how much damage the incident in China causes to ROK-Sino relations. However they pan out, both situations raise awkward questions about the true nature of Korean feelings toward non-Koreans and whether Koreans will ever learn how to relate with others.
Well said and hopefully this whole stupid incident will just go away. However, I do love this quote from the Marmot.
You know, if I were a GI, I might be enjoying this all. God knows I’ve heard and read enough bitching from English teachers about how the military types make them look bad. Well, 8th Army personnel, here’s your chance for a little payback. Next time you see an English teacher, tell him you were thinking of growing your hair long, but you didn’t want Koreans to confuse you for being a hagwon instructor.
Yes I have heard plenty of English teachers bitch about GI’s and so it is ironic that they get stuck with this. If any English teachers out there need some high and tights to blend in with other GI’s now, I can hook them up. My wife can cut your hair for cheap. Plus I can give you tips about blending in as a GI in Korea.
