Discrimination is not a surface-level issue that stems solely from individual prejudice, malicious intent, or flawed systems. Eliminating discrimination requires multifaceted efforts, including preventive measures and educational initiatives. Although South Korea has made strides to address this, both institutional and social remnants of discrimination continue to plague various facets of life. This underlines the reality that discrimination cannot be eradicated overnight through legal amendments or specific interventions alone.
To counter biased and distorted views, society needs to engage in disseminating correct information. Breaking free from ingrained habits and customs also necessitates a certain level of training and awareness. However, these efforts alone are not enough to eliminate discrimination. For blatant cases, corrective or prohibitory actions are required. An anti-discrimination law may not entirely erase discrimination, but without such a law, discrimination will persist.
In the context of South Korean society, an anti-discrimination law is crucial to facilitate the identification and awareness of discriminatory practices. While most agree that discrimination is detrimental, there has been limited societal discourse on what constitutes discrimination, what discriminatory actions should be prohibited, and what measures are needed to eliminate it. An anti-discrimination law serves as a pathway for society to collectively find answers to these questions.
Discrimination is rarely the result of a single cause. Identities are complex, intersectional, and intertwined, leading to multiple, overlapping experiences of discrimination. For instance, a young person who identifies as a sexual minority may face outing threats from teachers, a form of discrimination that arises from their dual identity as both young and a member of a sexual minority. Discrimination often cannot be explained by a single factor, as individuals are composed of multiple intersecting identities like irregular immigrant workers, refugee persons with disabilities, or elderly female laborers.
Addressing discrimination by focusing solely on individual causes or selecting just one factor from multiple causes complicates the understanding and explanation of each person’s unique experience of discrimination. It is only when discrimination is contextualized within multiple factors and identities that its experience can be fully understood. Therefore, there’s a pressing need for a comprehensive anti-discrimination law that addresses ‘intersectional discrimination.’
South Korea currently has individual anti-discrimination laws, such as the Disability Discrimination Act, which focuses on specific forms of discrimination like age or gender-based employment discrimination. Although these specific laws provide a concrete framework for certain types of discrimination, they are insufficient in addressing the complexity and intersectionality of discrimination experiences.
For example, when an elderly woman with a disability faces workplace discrimination, she must navigate the labyrinth of existing laws concerning age, disability, and gender discrimination to identify where her experience fits. This becomes an overwhelming task, leading to insufficient remedies. A comprehensive anti-discrimination law that takes into account why such discrimination occurred would provide a more nuanced interpretation of the experience of discrimination.
In summary, South Korea needs a holistic anti-discrimination law that acknowledges the complexity and intersectionality of discrimination, providing a more enriching interpretation and solution to this pervasive issue.
