Opinions on the first National Report of Korea on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 11. Article 21. Freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information 11.1 Access to information for persons with visual and hearing disabilities 1) Current status and problems ① After the Anti-Discrimination Act against Persons with Disabilities came into effect, a total of 1,238 complaints and 831 complaints were filed with the Commission until the end of 2013 in relation to discrimination against persons with visual and hearing disabilities respectively. Among them, the number of complaints related to access to information was 503 cases (40.6%) and 272 cases (32.7%) each. Given the characteristics of visual and hearing disabilities, impaired access to information accounted for the lion share of complaints against discrimination. ② According to the Enforcement Decree of the Anti-Discrimination Act against Persons with Disabilities, public organizations and legal entities have the duty to provide sign language, text and all the other necessary means to ensure persons with disabilities can access and use electronic and non-electronic information they produce and distribute services on an equal basis with persons without disabilities starting from April 11, 2009 and April 11, 2013, respectively. However, a total of 378 complaints were filed with the Commission between April 11, 2009 and June 30, 2014 against discrimination related to access to information by public organizations, and 280 complaints of the kind were also filed against private institutions between April 11, 2013 and June 30, 2014. ③ The National Report states that the proportion of broadcasting programs accessible to persons with disabilities (which provide closed captioning, descriptive video services and sign language interpretation) will be NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF KOREA 25