By Yun Suh-young
Taking and releasing photos of the disabled without their consent constitutes a violation of their human rights, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said Monday.
The commission said exposing physical attributes of the disabled through photos taken during volunteer work violates the law prohibiting discrimination against the disabled.
The affirmation follows a petition filed in August by a citizen claiming that a volunteer worker released photos of boys he was caring for while volunteering at a facility for the disabled. The petitioner also accused the owner of neglecting his duties for failing to stop volunteers from taking photos.
“Apparently about ten photos of the volunteer bathing the disabled boys obviously unclothed were uploaded on his personal blog,” an official from NHRC said.
The person who uploaded the pictures was an ordinary businessman who came every month with a group of volunteers to bathe the disabled boys at the facility.
In response to the petition, the man said he simply uploaded the pictures on his blog to record his everyday life and said he was not aware of the possibility that it could violate their rights.
The facility owner also said that he was not able to stop the volunteers from taking photos since they came every month to help out.
The commission decided to dismiss the case after the blogger and the facility owner apologized for the incidents.
“We will not take special action regarding this case since the blogger quickly closed his blog following the petition and publicly regretted his ignorance. The facility runner also was remorseful about allowing the volunteers to take pictures and promised to make sure that similar incidents wouldn’t take place again,” the commission said.
The NHRC said it made its decision public to raise awareness and prevent future violations. “We have received many similar petitions and wanted to make it clear that taking pictures of the disabled and releasing them without permission was a violation of human rights.”
About 10 similar cases regarding the exposition of photos of the disabled have been received since last year but no one has been penalized.