Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Rights commission calls for better textbook screening to prevent discrimination
Members of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea hold a meeting at the commission building in Seoul, Jan. 25. Korea Times file
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
The education authorities are urged to strengthen screening standards for school textbooks to ensure they don't contain content that could intensify prejudices and discrimination against sexual minorities, a state human rights watchdog said, Monday.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) said one high school textbook described sexual minorities as those who have “unique sexual tastes” and defined homosexuality as “sexual contact between people of the same gender,” which the watchdog said could increase negative perceptions of sexual minorities.
The commission's statement came in response to a petition filed last year by a citizen who found the textbook's content to be problematic. The textbook passed the education ministry's screening in August 2013.
In the book, a passage defined a sexual minority as “a person who is distinguished from the majority of society, and also has unique sexual tastes,” suggesting that sexual orientation is a matter of choice. It was also written that homosexuality “means that men love men or women love women through sexual contact.”
It also encouraged students to debate the concept of same-sex marriage. As examples for arguments against it, the textbook said, “Homosexuality is a mental illness that can be cured,” “HIV and sexually transmitted diseases spread through abnormal sexual behavior,” “Same-sex couples cannot have children, leading to a population decrease” and “If a same-sex married couple adopts a child, the adopted child will suffer serious identity confusion.”
During the commission's review, the publisher of the textbook said they tried to keep a balance between both opinions and did not support either side, adding the textbook was approved by the education ministry.
The content in question was deleted from the textbook in 2015 along with the authority's revisions to the curriculum. But the NHRCK decided to express its opinion on the issue to encourage value-neutral teaching and gender-equal education content in school textbooks.
“Such content could strengthen negative prejudices or stereotypes against sexual minorities and cause discrimination against them,” the commission said.
Although the content was deleted in the renewed curriculum, there may be other cases describing other socially disadvantaged groups, such as the disabled, foreigners, refugees or the elderly, it said. “The screening standards for school textbooks need to be strengthened so that expressions encouraging discrimination against the socially vulnerable are not included in the future.”