A human rights watchdog of the National Police Agency (NPA) said Saturday that it has been looking into cases of gender and class discrimination in the police in its efforts to root out problems within the law enforcement authority.
The NPA Human Rights Protection Center has collected 162 complaints from police officers and other employees since February and found out that there is discrimination on the grounds of gender and rank within the police.
For example, there are separate bathrooms and night duty rooms based on the users' rank and many female officers argued that they cannot easily take maternity leave, according to the center.
The human rights center said it will map out measures to prevent discrimination in the near future and send them to police stations nationwide.
"We intend to look over whether such practices are acceptable these days and make improvements," said Jang Shin-jung, chief of the center. (Yonhap)