Annual Report 2013 Chairperson's Foreword The National Human Rights Commission of the Republic of Korea (NHRCK) continued to make its best efforts without a letup in 2013. Our efforts encompassed not only the promotion of human rights of the social underprivileged and minorities, but also a wide variety of issues such as human rights policy including day-to-day human rights concerns, inspection and relief of human rights violations and discriminating practices, human rights education and publicity, cooperation with human right rights organizations, groups, and individuals, both domestic and international. I am proud that our efforts resulted in excellent numerical performance. In 2013, the number of receipts of complaints exceeded 10,000 and the number of counseling cases reached more than 30,000, first since the inception of the NHRCK. The number of complaint filings increased 160% compared with the year 2008. More than 170,000 persons, which increased 266% compared with the number of five years ago, participated in NHRCK's human rights education courses for the benefit of enhancing human rights sensitivity. In addition to our achievements expressed numerically, many other projects have been carried out. The Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and Human Rights Report was published where problems of collecting excessive personal information were pointed out and their solutions were proposed as well. It is noteworthy that the Report has already predicted the recent personal information leakage scandal of credit card companies. In addition, the Labor and Human Rights Policy Planning Group of the NHRCK actively issued policy recommendations and