in December 2016. The second petitioner (female) stated that a customs officer inspected her
personal belongings, such as innerwear and feminine products, with two men and one woman
watching in the waiting line at Gimpo International Airport in December 2017 and did not take
any measures to protect her privacy.
According to our investigation, although customs at Gimpo International Airport installed a
glass partition behind each inspection table and marked a line indicating the waiting area, the
inspection process was still in view of a third party standing behind the line, and it was likely to
cause humiliation to those subject to baggage inspection. We concluded that it was a violation of
possible based on the size of the inspection area, etc., to install additional partitions on inspection
tables or to readjust the distance between the inspection tables and the line indicating the waiting
area to conduct necessary inspections and prevent the process from being exposed to a third
party. We viewed that it was negligence of the duty to minimize the damage to human rights in
the process of attempting to achieve goals to cause such humiliation for subjects of inspection
despite the availability of human rights-friendly measures that can easily be adopted.
As such, we recommended on November 14 that the head of the petitionee institution
develop and distribute measures to customs to protect the privacy of individual travelers during
inspection, such as installing partitions and readjusting the distance between the baggage
inspection tables and the waiting line.
F. Schools
Inappropriate Investigation of School Violence Cases by Teachers
A petition was filed concerning a first-grade homeroom teacher at an elementary school who
interviewed a victim of school violence with over 20 classmates present on-site. The victim was
too intimidated to state the actions committed by the assailants.
We viewed that it was necessary to keep the process of counseling and investigation
regarding school violence confidential to prevent any secondary damage to the victim and to
give greater consideration to young students, especially students of lower grades, as they can
be psychologically unstable and find it hard to describe events. As such, we recommended on
National Human Rights Commission of Korea Annual Report 2018
99
Part 2 | Commission's Major Activities
personal rights and privacy guaranteed in Articles 10 and 17 of the Constitution as it appeared
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