KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

Compared to other sectors, legislations on women and family-related issues have shown a quite faster development with various legislative measures achieved to enhance gender equality policies in Korea. Nevertheless, there is no significant change in the reality that women face every day. Moreover, the job insecurity and economic disparity of women are worsening and women live in a society where sexual violence and harassment are prevailing. Such disparity between the law and the reality, inversely, demonstrates why legislations and institutions are critical in improving the reality. Here comes the imperative to create appropriate structures enabling constant and systemic efforts to close the gap between the law and the reality. To this end, Korean Women’s Development Institute has promoted researches with the aim of strengthening the effectiveness of women and family-related legislations by providing gender-sensitive support to the legislative activities in the National Assembly including developing relevant new bills and amendments for the ten years since 2013.

The study aims to support the legislative activities in the National Assembly from a gender-sensitive viewpoint by consistently identifying legislative tasks regarding women and family issues. For gender-sensitive policies to be developed and mainstreamed in every corner of society, legal basis should be put in place. It is also important to support gender-sensitive legislations to be motioned and enacted as relevant enactments have a great influence on women and family-relatedpolicies. Therefore, legislative activities in the National Assembly and the government should be supported to integrate gender-sensitive policies and agendas in enactment which are built on in-depth understanding of the reality facing women. Moreover, it is important to elaborate legislative tasks to make up unsatisfactory parts and enhance the effectiveness by closely reviewing the existing legislations. The effectiveness can be most strengthened when the pre-established women and family-related legislations and institutions are revised and improved in line with changing situations.

The newly proposed and revised bills regarding women and family-related issues are developed by analyzing and reviewing diverse bills including the suggestions available to be legalized among policy recommendations made by Korean Women’s Development Institute’s research reports, the bills pending in the 19th National Assembly, the bills proposed but discarded in the previous sessions, and the legislative plans advocated by civil society or legal profession’s organizations though not accepted as bills. At the same time, special concerns were made to avoid the duplication of the legislative tasks in the Institute’s 2013 report in selecting 2014 legislative tasks. These women and family-related legislative tasks can be categorized in to the six areas of labor policy, social security, family, violence, culture and policy making process. Each area’s main contents are as follows.

Legislative tasks suggested in terms of labor policies include the protection of social service workers, the enhancement of woman workers’ representation in workplace, the maternity protection of woman soldiers, the expansion of the Act on Equal Employment and Support for Work-Family Reconciliation (hereafter the Equal Employment Act)’s application scope, the preferential treatment of equal employment companies in public procurement business, and the expansion of the actors subject to responsibility to take measures necessary in case of sexual harassment. These tasks show the increasing attention in protecting the particular woman workers who remain excluded from the current labor laws and the Equal Employment Act. In particular, the measures to enhance the representation of woman workers in workplace are derived from the understanding that the current legislations on working women can be effective only when woman workers are granted channels to have their collective voice be heard and influencing. Meanwhile the public procurement-related legislative task is based on the awareness that an incentive program is critical in strengthening the effectiveness of non-discrimination laws in employment.

Regarding social security policies, legislative tasks such as the expansion of the legal definition of workers in industrial accident compensation system, the reduction of the exclusion causes in maternity benefits, the expansion of the application scope of social insurance subsidy program, and the establishment of the standards for emotional labor in industrial accident and occupational safety laws are suggested. These tasks aim to improve the current social insurance institutions to be more compatible with the woman workers’ reality. The legislative task on reducing exclusion causes is to address the significantly low accessibility of the vulnerable women groups to maternity protection benefits while the relevant provisions in the Employment Insurance Act have been improved to meet international standards. The emotional labor which has been neglected in the existing industrial safety and industrial accident system is also an important legislative task from the woman workers’ perspective.

Legislative tasks regarding family policies include the recognition of the claim for division of matrimonial property, the introduction of the automatic registration of birth system, and the allowance of unwed father’s registering his child birth. The right to claim division of matrimonial property has been consistently advocated for as a means to recognize the equal property right between husband and wife. After the Constitutional Court found the restriction on the de facto marriage spouse’s right of inheritance constitutional in 2013, even more comprehensive discussions are required to protect the rights of the spouse of de facto marriage. Korea’s birth registration system has been criticized of violating the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child in placing the responsibility to register a child’s birth entirely on parents. The automatic registration of birth system is suggested to address such problems. The legislations and international standards on adoption promote the principle of turning away from adoption and assisting a child to live with his or her birth parents to the fullest possible extent. However the current birth registration system makes it very difficult for an unwed father to register his child’s birth, contrary to the principle. In order to address the problem, a legal way for an unwed father to register birth should be established.

As violence-related legislative tasks, the enactment of the special act on the punishment of stalking crimes and the protection for victims, and the enhancement of protection for victims of domestic violence are proposed. The current legal system dealing with stalking crime as one of minor offenses cannot effectively prevent the violations of women’s human rights and protect victims. A special act which prescribes the mandatory intervention of the police in stalking offenses, the protection of victims, and the punishment of perpetrators in detail should be enacted. By making clear to the public that stalking is a crime, such legislation can have a general preventive effect. Since domestic violence was included in the four social evils, a number of legislations including the enhancement of the police’s intervention authority in domestic violence have been made. However, the legal basis on policies to support the relief and rehabilitation of victims remainsat the abstract level. In order to improve the situation, various legislative tasks including the provision of healthcare insurance for shelter residents, the provision of subsidies for self-reliance after leaving shelter, and the recognition of eligibility of those who had to quit a job due to domestic violence to receive unemployment benefits are suggested.

Legislative tasks suggested in relation with cultural policies include the applicable provisions on cultivating gender-sensitive human resources and the mandatory gender dis-aggregated statistics in the culture industry. Despite a high proportion of woman engaged in the culture industry, it is not free from gender inequality as higher-ranking posts such as the elected are more dominated by men while the majority of irregular workers are women. In order to address such problems, stipulating the obligation to cultivate the manpower from the gender-sensitive perspective in culture policy-related laws and producing the mandatory gender dis-aggregated statistics as a basic record to develop policies are suggested.

In terms of policy making process, the revision of rules for governmental organizations and the applicable provisions of gender-sensitive urban space creation projects are suggested as legislative tasks. The revision of rules for governmental organizations is to integrate the purpose and contents of the revised Framework Act on Women’s Development of 2013. Meanwhile, as gendersensitive urban space creation projects have been promoted for almost ten years, there is increasing need to establish legal bases in legislations regarding the national land use planning and urban redevelopment. It is a critical task necessary for the current woman-friendly urban projects to evolve into a program to promote the entry of more women in public affairs not merely providing more amenities to women.