By Lee Hyo-sik
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) ruled Thursday that street banners advertizing marriage to women from other countries treated them as merchandise and was a violation of their human rights.
It demanded the mayor of Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, remove the banners immediately from the city-managed advertizing zone. The commission also advised it to come up with measures to prevent such advertisements from being put up in public again and give supervising civil servants courses on human rights.
In July last year, a 45-year-old man, identified only by his surname Jang, filed a petition with the commission, complaining that about 30 street banners set up by a marriage agency across the city discriminated against foreign women on grounds of gender and race.
The banner read: “Blowout sale for 9.8 million won for men wanting to marry Vietnamese women on the commemoration of Korea’s advance into the second round of the World Cup.”
“The banners contain “money-for-marriage” expressions that anyone with money can marry Vietnamese women. They imply that women with certain nationalities can be bought and sold as merchandise. This may create racial prejudice against these women in our society,” the commission said.
It then said the street advertisements violate the law governing the management of outdoor commercial materials, which prohibits the expression of racial discrimination.
“They also infringe upon human dignity guaranteed by the nation’s Constitution. Anseong should take steps to prevent the repeat of such an incident and have related civil servants take lessons on human rights,” the NHRC said.
Following the recommendation, the city has pulled down the controversial banner ads.
A commission official said Korean society has an obligation to support foreign women who married Korean men and help them live in a racial prejudice-free environment.
According to Statistics Korea, marriages between Koreans and foreigners accounted for 10.8 percent of all weddings in the country in 2009, up more than three-fold from nine years earlier.
There were 33,300 such marriages last year, a sharp increase from 11,605 tallied in 2000.
Of the total, 75.5 percent of such marriages involved a Korean groom and foreign bride, it said. The percentage reflects an increase from 59.8 percent reported in 2000 and 72.5 percent in 2005.
The agency attributed the increase to more men in rural communities seeking foreign wives since local women prefer to live in cities after marriage, and a general rise in cross-border movement among people.