Sauna operator advised not to discriminate against foreign residents

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Mon, May 1, 2017 | 22:48

Sauna operator advised not to discriminate against foreign residents

Posted : 2012-01-17 18:14

Updated : 2012-01-17 18:14

Ku Su-jin, a naturalized Korean from Uzbekistan, speaks at a news conference in this file photo taken on Oct. 13 in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province. Ku said she was denied entrance to a sauna, just because she looked foreign by appearance. / Yonhap

By Kim Rahn

A sauna operator in Busan has been recommended to allow the entrance of foreigners.

The National Human Rights Commission also called for local authorities to set up regulations to prevent discrimination against foreign residents and tourists at such facilities.

The move comes after an ethnic Uzbek woman filed a petition with the commission in October after she was denied entrance to the sauna.

The naturalized Korean, Ku Su-jin whose Uzbek name is Karina Kurbanova, told the sauna employee that she was a Korean, but the worker said she was still a “foreigner” by appearance and foreign users “make the water in the bathtub dirty” and “pass on AIDS.”

According to police, the sauna operator also said Korean customers don’t like using facilities with foreigners because there were many foreign women working at bars in Busan and some were rumored to have AIDS.

The commission said Korea is one of the countries that has signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the law should reflect this.

“As an operator of a commercial facility, the sauna operator may have to take the majority of customers’ opinions into consideration. But customers’ demands do not justify racial discrimination,” the commission said.

“Also, AIDS is passed on through sexual intercourse or blood contamination, not through sharing a sauna. But the operator banned foreigners from using the facility only because some foreign women in the town may have AIDS, and this is discrimination by race,” it added.

The commission also recommended the Busan mayor and the head of the district office come up with measures to prevent such a thing from recurring.

It said the state or local authorities should educate the public and take other necessary actions to prevent discrimination against foreign residents and their children.

“We advised the local authorities to make guidelines so that people in the region will not be discriminated against according to their race or skin color,” an official said.

“It is regrettable that the nation doesn’t have a law to ban racial discrimination while we have 1.3 million foreign residents. But some local authorities across the country have come up their own ordinances to fight discrimination,” he added.

rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr