Rights, etc. and the Act on Prohibition of Age Discrimination in Employment and
Elderly Employment Promotion. The National Human Rights Commission of
Korea Act is an organization act which focuses on procedures to petition against
and provide the relief of discrimination, limiting the possibility of conceptually
defining diverse reasons for discrimination and entailing various areas subject to
anti-discrimination. Due to this restriction, the Act on the Prohibition of
Discrimination against Disabled Persons, Remedy against Infringement of Their
Rights, etc. and the Act on Prohibition of Age Discrimination in Employment and
Elderly
Employment
Promotion
have
been
enacted
as
individual
anti-
discrimination laws.
5. The Equal Employment Opportunity and Work-Family Balance Assistance Act and
the Gender Discrimination Prevention and Relief Act have been established in
1987 and 1999 respectively as laws for anti-discrimination against women and
equality. Still, The Equal Employment Opportunity and Work-Family Balance
Assistance Act is confined to gender discrimination in employment. The first
individual law which applied prohibition of discrimination based on gender to all
areas, the Gender Discrimination Prevention and Relief Act, was repealed in 2005
during the law rearrangement through the unification of organizations for
discrimination remedy.
6. Therefore, in order to redress gender discrimination in various areas such as
increasing hatred against women and online sexual violence and reinforce relief
for victims, an act on prohibition of gender discrimination is required based on
an approach as a substantive law. Since the prohibition of gender discrimination
is part of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, some might argue that a
separate gender discrimination act would have no substantial benefits. However,
it would be more effective in discrimination prevention and victim relief if a
comprehensive anti-discrimination law is enacted to serve as an umbrella (higher
law or proper law as a common ground for all anti-discrimination acts) for antidiscrimination acts on individual grounds and areas and additionally other antidiscrimination laws by reasons and areas are also established based on their
distinct characteristics.