Government regulations still discriminate against the disabled

Posted on : 2013-08-19 15:14 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Activists seeking to amend host of regulations that limit the rights of people with disabilities
 the provincial capital
the provincial capital

By Park Soo-hyuk, Gangwon Province correspondent

#1. Lee, an 18-year-old Busanite with a Class 3 mental disability, recently abandoned plans to attend one of the city’s Metropolitan Council meetings. The council’s website said that “people with mental impairments” were barred for attending. In addition to banning intoxicated people and those carrying knives and other deadly weapons, the council also denies admission to “the mentally ill.” People with mental disabilities are also barred by ordinance from visiting museums, municipal libraries, welfare centers, lifelong learning centers, and a host of other public facilities.

#2. Cho, a 41-year-old resident of Donghae, Gangwon Province, runs into trouble every time she goes to the park or the playground with her daughter. The visually impaired Cho depends on a guide dog to help her around. She tells the officials that the dog is well trained not to urinate or bark outside, and that she always keeps it on a leash. But they insist that an ordinance bans visitors from bringing pets.

The Anti-Discrimination Against and Remedies for Persons with Disabilities Act was enacted in 2007 as a way of promoting full social participation and equal rights for the disabled. Six years later, it is a very different society from the one that used terms such as “cripple,” “insane,” and “idiot” to describe individuals with disabilities.

But many local government ordinances, regulations, directives and established rules still contain items that denigrate and discriminate against the disabled. Amendment is an urgent issue, since these items - including childbirth support and wheelchair repairs - have a direct impact on the daily lives of disabled people.

Last year, the organization National Solidarity for Enacting and Amending Ordinances for the Disabled assessed 96,224 regulations enforced by 244 local governments across the country. It found 1,727 regulations with discriminatory content.

Most of them limited access to public places such as museums and libraries to those who are “mentally ill.” The term itself is seen as insulting and hurtful by people with psychological or developmental disabilities and their family members, but the rules of operation for the Fossil Museum in Donghae, Gangwon Province, clearly spells out that admission can be denied to the “mentally ill”. Similar terms are also found in the rules of use for the Chuncheon City Library.

“The word ‘mentally ill’ is used to denigrate people with psychological disabilities,” said Lee Myeong-gyu, head of the rights protection team for the Gangwon Province Welfare Center for the Disabled. “The decision to deny any access to public places to these people, even when they pose no threat to others and are not disruptive, stems from a fundamental fear of those with psychological disabilities. It is a violation of the Anti-Discrimination Act to ban them from using public facilities simply on the basis of their disability.”

Other places effect a ban in more roundabout ways, such as by using vague terms such as “people with defects that might be displeasing to others.” These items are found only in local government regulations, without any basis in higher law. They hark back to the so-called “ugly law” that was abolished in Chicago in 1974. This law denied access to highways and other public places to people who were “diseased, maimed, mutilated or in any way deformed so as to be unsightly or displeasing.” Similar items can still be found in active South Korean local government regulations, including ordinances on the use of the Guro Culture and Arts Center in Seoul, the Gangseo Library in Busan, the Gususan Library in Daegu’s North district, and Gwangsan Provincial Library in Gwangju.

Indeed, the local and metropolitan councils that make the ordinances are often the ones leading the push to discriminate. The Busan Metropolitan Council’s meeting guidelines state that people with “mental illnesses” are not allowed to attend. The same rules exist for the Wonju and Taebaek city councils in Gangwon Province. The Meanwhile, Ulsan Metropolitan Council amended its laws to remove the language. Lee Dong-gu, an action officer for the council‘s secretariat, explained that the amendment came “after internal discussions stemming from concerns about violating the Anti-Discrimination Act.”

In some cases, ordinances may be used as a reason to deny public service positions or promotions to people with disabilities. Most personnel guidelines for local governments include ratings for language command and appearance during interviews.

“The standards are there to deny access to public jobs to people who stammer or have difficulty keeping their body steady - so people with language disabilities, facial disabilities, intellectual disabilities, and brain lesions,” explained a 44-year-old surnamed Kim who has a Class 1 intellectual disability. “The local government ordinances that have do with public service, perhaps the area with the most immediate bearing on services for the disabled, are the ones that never seem to change.”

Critics have blasted the “backward” approach of ordinances that still depict disabilities as afflictions to be overcome. Gyeonggi Province and the cities of Incheon, Mokpo, and Uiwang, as well as Daegu’s East district, all have ordinances giving prizes for “overcoming disabilities.”

“When you praise and reward people for ‘overcoming disabilities,’ you’re implying that ordinary people with those same disabilities are shameful and lesser,” said Cho Hyun-shik, a social worker with the Gangwon Province Welfare Center for the Disabled. “It’s disparaging to the disabled.”

In response to the criticisms, the central government changed the name of its award in 2008 from “disability triumph of the year” to “disabled person of the year.”

National Solidarity was started in 2011 by disabled rights activists campaigning to amend discriminatory ordinances, but a lot of ground remains to be covered. The group sent requests to local governments to amend the 1,727 discriminatory items it found, but as of late 2012, only 491 of them, or 28%, had been changed.

Kim Ui-su, a senior researcher at the Disability Policy Monitoring Center for the Human Rights Forum of Persons with Disabilities in Korea, said amendment was becoming an increasingly pressing issue.

 

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