Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, or gender identity is not prohibited.

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes various forms of rape, regardless of the gender of a victim. The law also criminalizes custodial rape of a minor younger than age 18. The law does not deny the possibility of spousal rape, but no court has ever ruled on such a case, except in situations of marital breakdown (i.e., formal or informal separation, etc.). The law mandates a minimum sentence of five years in prison for rape convictions. Prosecutors must prove that violence or intimidation was involved or that the victim was incapable of resistance. Domestic violence is also a crime for which victims may seek restraining orders. Convicted assault perpetrators face up to two years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to 300,000 yen ($2,760). Convicted offenders who caused bodily injury faced up to 15 years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to 500,000 yen ($4,600). Protective order violators face up to one year’s imprisonment or a fine of up to one million yen ($9,200).

Several acquittals in rape cases called attention to the high legal standard and prosecutorial burden, which NGOs asserted imposed an unfairly high burden on victims and deterred them from coming forward. In March a Nagoya court acquitted a father accused of raping his 19-year-old daughter despite recognizing that the sex was nonconsensual and that force was involved, concluding that doubt remained whether she had no option other than to submit. In July the Nagoya Prosecutors’ Office decided not to indict a former Diet member for suspected sexual assault against his girlfriend while she was sleeping.

During the year the press also reported at least two arrests involving rapes and sexual assaults by male employees of large private firms against female college students during job-hunting meetings.

NGOs and legal experts pointed out a lack of training for judges, prosecutors, and lawyers about sexual crimes and victims.

Rape and domestic violence are significantly underreported crimes. According to a survey by the government’s Gender Equality Bureau, only 2.8 percent of sexual assault victims report the crime to police and nearly 60 percent of rape victims do not report the crime. Observers attributed women’s reluctance to report rape to a variety of factors, including fear of being blamed, fear of public shaming, a lack of victim support, potential secondary victimization through the police response, and court proceedings that lacked empathy for rape victims.

Victims of abuse by domestic partners, spouses, and former spouses could receive protection at shelters.

Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment in the workplace persisted. The law does not criminalize sexual harassment but includes measures to identify companies that fail to prevent it. Prefectural labor offices and the MHLW provided these companies with advice, guidance, and recommendations. Companies that fail to comply with government guidance may be publicly identified, although this has not happened in years.

The government has a set of measures to prevent sexual harassment, including requiring all senior national government officials to take mandatory training courses as well as setting up a consultation mechanism in each ministry and agency to which the general public can report sexual harassment. Nonetheless, harassment continued in government agencies.

In May the Diet passed a set of labor law revisions making it mandatory for companies to take preventive measures against power harassment in the workplace. The revisions, which go into effect in April 2020, also created additional requirements for companies to prevent sexual harassment.

Press reported that sexual harassment targeting students during job-hunting activities was widespread. The government requires companies to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, but the regulations do not apply to students looking for jobs. To address this, universities were issuing warnings to students, and some companies announced new conduct rules to their employees when meeting students searching for jobs (see section 7.d.).

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

In April the government passed a law to compensate individuals who were involuntarily sterilized from 1948 to 1996 under a policy that targeted persons with disabilities under the defunct Eugenic Protection Law. Affected persons received approximately 2.57 million yen ($28,000) each and a formal apology. The MHLW estimated 25,000 persons were subjected to forced sterilization surgery under that law.

Discrimination: The law prohibits gender discrimination and generally provides women the same rights as men. The Gender Equality Bureau in the Cabinet Office continued to examine policies and monitor developments.

Despite these policies, NGOs continued to allege that implementation of antidiscrimination measures was insufficient, pointing to discriminatory provisions in the law, unequal treatment of women in the labor market (see section 7.d.), and low representation of women in high-level elected bodies.

In June a group submitted a petition to the MHLW calling for a ban on workplace dress codes that require women to wear high heels, citing gender equality and gender-based workplace discrimination, as well as health concerns. The petition had approximately 30,000 signatures. Following the submission of the petition, the labor minister commented, “[wearing heels] is socially accepted as something that falls within the realm of being occupationally necessary and appropriate.” Later he added, “It depends on the specific situation. In light of social norms, it can’t be considered harassment unless it exceeds the scope of what’s appropriate and necessary for the job.” Approximately 60 percent of Japanese women have reportedly been asked to wear heels for work or a job interview.

NGOs continued to urge the government to allow married couples a choice of surnames.

Birth Registration: The law grants citizenship at birth to: a child of a Japanese father who either is married to the child’s mother or recognizes his paternity; a child of a Japanese mother; or, a child born in the country to parents who are both unknown or are stateless. The law requires registration within 14 days after in-country birth or within three months after birth abroad, and these deadlines were generally met. Individuals were allowed to register births after the deadline but were required to pay a fine.

The law requires birth entries in the family registry to specify whether a child was born in or out of wedlock. The law presumes that a child born within 300 days of a divorce is the divorced man’s child, resulting in the nonregistration of an unknown number of children.

Child Abuse: Reports of child abuse continued to increase. Police protected a larger number of victims while arresting a greater number of abusers (mainly fathers, mothers, stepfathers, or parents’ boyfriends) for physical, sexual, or psychological assaults, killing, or neglect. The MHLW received increased reports of psychological abuse as a result of witnessing domestic violence at home.

Legal experts called for MHLW’s child-care centers and police to share child abuse cases fully to identify and prevent further abuse. The law provides for a simplified process to inspect homes where child abuse is suspected; requires child welfare offices to have legal, psychological, and medical experts on staff; allows more municipalities to have child-welfare offices; and, raised the age of eligibility for staying at public homes.

Reports of sexual abuse of children by teachers continued. Local education boards around the nation imposed disciplinary actions on 210 teachers of public schools for child obscenity from April 2017 through March 2018, according to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. Child assistance experts urged the ministry to share information more actively on teachers involved in child molestation with police to reduce further victimization of children in schools.

Early and Forced Marriage: The law stipulates that to marry, the male partner must be age 18 or older and the female partner 16 or older. A person younger than age 20 may not marry without at least one parent’s approval. A law creating gender parity in the legal age to marry, 18 for both sexes, comes into force in 2022.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: Child prostitution is illegal, with penalties including prison sentences or fines. Statutory rape laws criminalize sexual intercourse with a girl younger than age 13, notwithstanding her consent. The penalty for statutory rape is not less than three years’ imprisonment with mandatory labor. The law was enforced. Additionally, national law and local ordinances address sexual abuse of minors. Possession of child pornography is a crime. The commercialization of child pornography is illegal; the penalty is imprisonment with labor for not more than three years or a fine not exceeding three million yen ($27,600). Police continued to crack down on this crime.

The continued practice of enjo kosai (“compensated dating”) and the existence of websites for online dating, social networking, and “delivery health” (a euphemism for call-girl or escort services) facilitated the sex trafficking of children and other commercial sex industries. The government’s interagency taskforce to combat child sex trafficking in joshi kosei (or “JK” businesses)–dating services connecting adult men with underage girls–and in forced pornography continued to strengthen its crackdown on such businesses. In 2018 authorities identified 137 of these operations nationwide. A total of 69 individuals alleged to have been engaged in unspecified criminal activities surrounding the JK business were arrested, and seven major prefectures passed ordinances banning JK businesses, prohibiting girls younger than 18 from working in “compensated dating services,” or requiring JK business owners to register their employee rosters with local public safety commissions. NGOs helping girls in the JK business reported a link between these activities and the commercial sexual exploitation of children in prostitution.

The country was a site for the production of child pornography and the exploitation of children by traffickers.

No law addresses the unfettered availability of sexually explicit cartoons, comics, and video games, some of which depicted scenes of violent sexual abuse and the rape of children.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

No official statistics of the Jewish population in the country were available. According to a Jewish community representative, approximately 100 households are active members of the community. Anti-Semitic speech continued in rare incidents in the public and cyber space. In early 2018 popular anime director Kazuyoshi Yaginuma sent tweets questioning the Holocaust and supporting other anti-Semitic tweets. There were no reports of anti-Semitic incidents during the year.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, intellectual, mental, or other disabilities affecting body and mind and bars infringement of their rights and interests on the grounds of disability in the public and private sectors. The law requires the public sector to provide reasonable accommodations and the private sector to make best efforts in employment, education, access to health care, or the provision of other services. The laws do not stipulate remedies for persons with disabilities who experience discriminatory acts, nor do they establish penalties for noncompliance. The law also mandates that the government and private companies hire minimum proportions (2.5 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively) of persons with disabilities (including mental disabilities) or be fined. Disability rights advocates claimed some companies preferred to pay the fine rather than hire persons with disabilities (see section 7.d.).

Accessibility laws mandate that new construction projects for public use must include provisions for persons with disabilities. The government may grant low interest loans and tax benefits to operators of hospitals, theaters, hotels, and other public facilities if they upgrade or install features to accommodate persons with disabilities.

Nonetheless, persons with disabilities faced limited access to some public-sector services. Abuse of persons with disabilities was a serious concern. Persons with disabilities around the country experienced abuse by family members, care-facility employees, and employers. Private surveys indicated discrimination against and sexual abuse of women with disabilities.

In July the government agreed to implement a court ruling awarding damages to former leprosy patients’ relatives. The court ruled the state acted illegally when it failed to end the segregation of persons with leprosy by 1960 and retained a discriminatory law on leprosy until 1996.

NGOs continued to express concern that persons with disabilities tended to be stigmatized and segregated from the general population. While some schools provided inclusive education, children with disabilities generally attended specialized schools.

Mental health professionals asserted the government’s efforts to reduce the stigma of mental illness and inform the public that depression and other mental illnesses are treatable and biology-based were insufficient.

Minorities experienced varying degrees of societal discrimination.

The law specifically addresses discrimination against Buraku (the descendants of feudal-era outcasts). It obligates national and local governments to study discrimination against Buraku, implement awareness education, and enhance the counseling system.

Despite legal safeguards against discrimination, foreign permanent residents in the country and nonethnically Japanese citizens, including many who were born, raised, and educated in the country, were subjected to various forms of entrenched societal discrimination, including restricted access to housing, education, health care, and employment opportunities. Foreign nationals and “foreign looking” citizens reported they were prohibited entry, sometimes by signs reading “Japanese Only,” to privately owned facilities serving the public, including hotels and restaurants. Such discrimination usually was open and direct, and NGOs complained of government failure to enforce laws prohibiting such restrictions.

There was no indication of increased societal acceptance of ethnic Koreans. Representatives of the ethnic Korean community said hate speech against Koreans in public and on social networking sites persisted. After a stabbing spree in May that left 20 persons dead or injured, false rumors were spread online claiming the perpetrator was Korean. In March the government’s Japan Pension Service fired a branch director after he tweeted offensive messages against Koreans. Although authorities approved most naturalization applications, advocacy groups continued to complain about excessive bureaucratic hurdles that complicated the naturalization process and a lack of transparent criteria for approval. Ethnic Koreans who chose not to naturalize faced difficulties in terms of civil and political rights and regularly encountered discrimination in job promotions as well as access to housing, education, and other benefits.

Senior government officials publicly repudiated the harassment of ethnic groups as inciting discrimination and reaffirmed the protection of individual rights for everyone in the country.

In April a law was enacted to recognize officially Ainu as indigenous people, prohibit discrimination against them, prohibit the violation of Ainu rights, and protect and promote their culture. The law requires the national and local governments to take measures to support communities and boost local economies and tourism. The law does not stipulate rights to self-determination or education for the Ainu.

Although the government does not recognize the Ryukyu (a term that includes residents of Okinawa and portions of Kagoshima Prefecture) as indigenous people, it officially acknowledged their unique culture and history and made efforts to preserve and show respect for those traditions.

The law requires transgender persons to be without reproductive capacity, effectively requiring surgical sterilization for most persons, in order to have their gender identity legally recognized. They also must meet additional conditions, including undergoing a psychiatric evaluation and receiving a diagnosis of “gender identity disorder,” which the World Health Organization formally removed from the mental disorders section of the International Classification of Diseases released in May; being unmarried and older than age 20; and not having any children younger than age 20. On January 23, the Supreme Court ruled on a suit filed in 2016 that the above requirements were constitutional.

No law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and there are no penalties associated with such discrimination. In February the Tokyo District Court dismissed a damage suit against Hitotsubashi University filed by parents of a student who fell from the school building in 2015 after his classmates without his consent disclosed he was gay; the court declared the university bore no responsibility for the death.

The Ministry of Justice received 33 inquiries about potential human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity in 2018, providing the inquirers with legal advice. LGBTI advocacy organizations reported instances of discrimination, outing, bullying, harassment, and violence.

Stigma surrounding LGBTI persons remained an impediment to self-reporting of discrimination or abuse.

A ruling Liberal Democratic Party Diet member, Katsuei Hirasawa, reportedly stated at a January 3 public event that a nation would collapse if everyone became like LGBTI persons. LGBTI rights advocates criticized his remark for denying sexual diversity and being discriminatory by exaggerating an unlikely reality.

In August for the first time, a transgender person received a long-term residency permit on the basis of her same-sex partnership.

A Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Diet member, Taiga Ishikawa, became the second openly LGBTI national legislator at the July Upper House election. The Ibaraki Prefecture government enacted a prefectural ordinance banning discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation on March 25, becoming the second prefecture to do so, after Tokyo. A number of municipalities have also done so. LGBTI advocates welcomed these moves but also expressed concern about their effectiveness due to the general lack of a remedies clause.

No law prohibits discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS, although nonbinding Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare guidelines state that firms should not terminate or fail to hire individuals based on their HIV status. Courts have awarded damages to individuals fired from positions due to their HIV status.

Concern about discrimination against individuals with HIV/AIDS and the stigma associated with the disease, and fear of dismissal, prevented many persons from disclosing their HIV/AIDS status.

Police arrested a series of individuals who abused senior citizens, and the MHLW reported rising rates of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of senior citizens, as well as nursing care negligence by their families and nursery care center employees.

Rape and Domestic Violence: The government appeared to criminalize rape, but no information was available on details of the law or how it was enforced. The 2014 UNCOI report found the subjugation of inmates and a general climate of impunity created an environment in which guards and other prisoners in privileged positions raped female inmates. The 2018 Human Rights Watch report You Cry at Night but Don’t Know Why reported endemic sexual and gender-based violence and details cases of sexual assault or coerced sexual acts by men in official positions of authority between 2011 and 2015. When cases of rape came to light, the perpetrator often escaped with mere dismissal or no punishment. For example, Human Rights Watch reported a 2009 case in which a woman arrested for illegally fleeing the country was raped by a police chief. After she told her lawyer, the lawyer refused to mention it during her trial and said nothing would be done and the woman could be punished more severely for bringing it up. As noted in the KINU white paper for 2018, the law prohibits domestic violence, but the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women expressed concern that North Korea was not taking any protective or preventive measures against such violence. Defectors continued to report violence against women was a systematic problem both inside and outside the home. According to a KINU survey of defectors conducted from 2013 to 2017, 76.9 percent of respondents believed domestic violence was “common.”

Sexual Harassment: Despite the law defectors reported the populace generally accepted sexual harassment of women due to patriarchal traditions. They reported there was little recourse for women who had been harassed. Defectors also reported lack of enforcement and impunity enjoyed by government officials made sexual harassment so common as to be accepted as part of ordinary life.

Coercion in Population Control: NGOs and defectors reported that the state security officials subjected women to forced abortions for political purposes, to cover up human rights abuses and rape in particular, and to “protect” ethnic purity, and not population control. KINU’s white paper for 2019 stated that officials had in some cases prohibited live births in prison and ordered forced abortions as recently as 2013.

Discrimination: The constitution states, “women hold equal social status and rights with men;” however, few women reached high levels of the party or the government, and defectors said gender equality was nonexistent. KINU reported that discrimination against women emerged in the form of differentiated pay scales, promotions, and types of work assigned to women, in addition to responsibility for the double burden of labor and housework, especially considering the time and effort required to secure food.

Birth Registration: Children derive citizenship from one’s parents and, in some cases, birth within the country’s territory.

Education: The law provides for 12 years of free compulsory education for all children. Reports indicated that authorities denied some children educational opportunities and subjected them to punishments and disadvantages as a result of the songbun loyalty classification system and the principle of “collective retribution” for the transgressions of family members. NGO reports also noted some children were unable to attend school regularly because of hidden fees or insufficient food. NGOs reported that children in the total control zones of political prisons did not receive the same curriculum or quality of education those outside the total control zones.

Foreign visitors and academic sources reported that from the fifth grade, schools subjected children to several hours a week of mandatory military training and that all children received political indoctrination.

Medical Care: There was no verifiable information available on whether boys and girls had equal access to state-provided medical care. Access to health care largely depended on loyalty to the government. In a December report on broader health and well-being trends in North Korea, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, using publicly available data and interviews of defectors who arrived in the Republic of Korea during the year, documented widespread inadequacies in medical care for children.

Child Abuse: Information about societal or familial abuse of children remained unavailable. The law states that a man who has sexual intercourse with a girl younger than age 15 shall be “punished gravely.” There was no reporting on whether the government enforced this law.

Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum age for marriage is 18 for men and 17 for women.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: Because many girls and young women attempt to flee repressive conditions, poverty, and food shortages for their own survival or the betterment of their family, 2019 international media reports and the 2014 UNCOI report noted they were often subjected to sexual exploitation by traffickers. Traffickers promised these young girls jobs in other parts of the country or in China but then sold them into forced marriages or domestic servitude or made them work in prostitution after being smuggled out of the country. In their November publication of Inescapable Violence: Child Abuse within North Korea, the Seoul-based NGO People for Successful Corean Unification documented endemic child abuse, including child sexual abuse, in North Korean schools, homes, camps, orphanages, and detention centers.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Displaced Children: According to NGO reports, there were numerous street children, many of them orphans, who had inconsistent access to education.

Institutionalized Children: Guards subjected children living in prison camps to torture if they or a family member violated the prison rules. Reports noted authorities subjected children to forced labor for up to 12 hours per day and did not allow them to leave the camps. Prisons offered them limited access to education.

Daily NK, a defector-run online newspaper operating in South Korea, reported that children at boarding schools for orphans were improperly fed and staff stole food to pay school debts. One child reportedly died due to overwork and malnutrition.

International Child Abductions: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

There was no known Jewish population, and there were no reports of anti-Semitic acts.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

Although the government claims the law meets the international standards of rights for persons with disabilities, in a 2016 National Human Rights Commission of Korea survey, 89 percent of defectors said there was no consideration for persons with disabilities.

While the law mandates equal access to public services for persons with disabilities, the state has not enacted the implementing legislation. Traditional social norms condone discrimination against persons with disabilities, including in the workplace (also see section 7.d.). While the state treated veterans with disabilities well, they reportedly sent other persons with physical and mental disabilities from Pyongyang to internal exile, quarantined them within camps, and forcibly sterilized them. Persons with disabilities experienced discrimination in accessing public life.

The UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities visited the country for the first time in 2018 and noted most infrastructure, including new buildings, was not accessible to persons with physical disabilities.

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child repeatedly expressed concern, most recently in 2017, about de facto discrimination against children with disabilities and insufficient measures taken by the state to ensure these children had effective access to health, education, and social services. KINU’s 2019 white paper evaluated the provision of special education to disabled children as poor.

There are no laws against consensual same-sex activity, but little information was available on discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In 2014 the Korean Central News Agency, the state news agency, denied the existence of consensual same-sex activity in the country and reported, “The practice can never be found in the DPRK boasting of sound mentality and good morals.”

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law criminalizes rape; although no specific statute defines spousal rape as illegal, the Supreme Court acknowledged marital rape as illegal. The penalty for rape ranges from a minimum of three years to life imprisonment depending on the specific circumstances. Rape is defined in law as involving the use of violence. The law defines domestic violence as a serious crime and authorizes courts to order offenders to stay away from victims for up to six months. This restraining order may be extended up to two years. Offenders may be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison and fined up to seven million won ($5,810) for domestic violence offenses. Noncompliance with domestic violence restraining orders may result in a maximum sentence of two years in prison and a fine of up to 20 million won ($16,600). Authorities may also place convicted offenders on probation or order them to see court-designated counselors.

When there is a danger of domestic violence recurring and an immediate need for protection, the law allows a provisional order to be issued ex officio or at the victim’s request. This may restrict the subject of the order from living in the same home, approaching within 109 yards of the victim, or contacting the victim through telecommunication devices.

The law allows judges or an MOJ committee to sentence repeat sex offenders to “chemical castration,” where sex offenders undergo drug treatment designed to diminish sexual urges. The law was enacted to protect children against an increasing number of reported sex crimes. The ministry reported that one such procedure was conducted between January and July.

Police generally responded promptly and appropriately to reported incidents, and the judicial system effectively enforced the law. Because a rape conviction requires proving that violence was used, and because the country’s defamation laws allow countersuits by alleged perpetrators, rape offenses are underreported and under prosecuted.

In February the Seoul High Court overruled a lower court’s August 2018 acquittal of Ahn Hee-jung, former governor of South Chuncheong. The High Court convicted Ahn on multiple counts of “sexual intercourse by abuse of authority”–in lieu of a rape charge and other charges–and sentenced him to three-and-one-half years’ imprisonment. Ahn’s March 2018 arrest and subsequent trial for raping his former secretary drew nationwide attention to the country’s contentious definition of rape that is based on “means of violence” rather than lack of consent.

Domestic violence remained a significant and underreported problem according to NGOs. According to KNPA statistics, in 2018 248,660 cases of domestic violence were reported, an 11-percent decrease from 2017. Reports of violence among unmarried couples, called “dating violence,” doubled from 2016 (9,364 cases) to 2018 (18,961 cases).

Data from the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office showed that nearly 40 percent of victims of sex crimes were between 21 and 30 years old. Approximately 21 percent of victims were between 16 and 20 years old.

The Commission for the Eradication of Sexual Violence and Digital Sex Crimes seeks to coordinate the provision of countermeasures and promote consultation across ministries. It is composed of 24 members, including the MOGEF minister, vice ministers of relevant ministries, and private sector experts. The government also established gender equality positions in eight ministries to place greater emphasis on these issues.

The Supreme Prosecutor’s Office revised its investigation manual on sexual violence to delay investigating “false accusation” charges until it first reaches a decision on whether a sexual assault has actually taken place.

In June police arrested a man after he beat his foreign-born wife for three hours in front of their two-year-old child. A video clip of the assault was widely viewed on the internet, sparking a national debate about foreign brides and rural municipal governments offering subsidies (intended to stem rural population decline) to bring them to the country. An NGO, however, argued that the subsidies amounted to “wife buying” and that the brides were vulnerable to human rights abuses, “often [taking on] the role of a housekeeper and a sexual object.” The fact that it was on average 3.9 days from when the couple first met to when they were legally married, and that the average age difference between bride and groom was 18.4 years were cited to support this view. According to a survey by the NHRCK, 42 percent of foreign-born brides have experienced domestic violence and 68 percent had experienced unwanted sexual advances. Domestic violence among native South Korean couples is high in general but probably somewhat lower than among mixed couples.

In August, in response to violence against migrant brides, the MOJ announced new regulatory measures to prevent abuses. These included a “one strike” policy that prevented a person convicted of domestic violence from petitioning for a visa for a foreign bride. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) was concerned that the addition of a “right to request investigation” policy might make foreign spouses more vulnerable. The policy allows the South Korean spouse to petition immigration authorities directly to investigate the foreign spouse in the event of separation. The IOM feared this would exacerbate the already disproportionate power imbalance in these relationships.

In March 2018, in response to the #MeToo movement, MOGEF created the Special Center for Reporting Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault. The ministry funded 170 counseling centers (called “sunflower centers”) nationwide for victims of sexual violence, providing counseling, medical care and therapy, caseworkers, and legal assistance. There were 241,343 reported cases of sexual violence in 2018 (an increase of 33.7 percent since 2017), according to Statistics Korea, a government agency. According to NGOs, sunflower centers generally provided adequate support to female victims of sexual assault, but male victims struggled to find help.

In July the government formally closed the Reconciliation and Healing foundation, established with a one billion yen ($9.1 million) contribution from the Japanese government under a 2015 bilateral agreement to provide support to former comfort women; no decision was made on how to use unspent funds.

Sexual Harassment: The law obligates companies and organizations to take preventive measures against sexual harassment. Under antibullying laws introduced in July, in certain cases failure to take appropriate action may result in fines or jail time. The government generally enforced the law effectively. The KNPA classifies sexual harassment as “indecent acts by compulsion.”

Sexual harassment was a significant social problem, and there were numerous cases of sexual harassment reported in media throughout the year.

In February a female student at Seoul National University accused a professor of sexual harassment. She said that the professor gave her unwanted shoulder massages and played with her hair while she slept on a bus, lifted up her skirt and touched her leg when she would not show him a scar on her inner thigh, and forced her to drink significant amounts of alcohol. She submitted her complaints to the university’s Human Rights Center, along with complaints from 17 other students. The center suspended the professor for three months. The student called the decision “absurd” and urged the school to terminate him, but the school declined.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

Discrimination: Women enjoy the same legal rights under the constitution as men. In January, President Moon described the gender gap as a “shameful reality” and pledged to address it. Moon has generally kept his pledge from the beginning of his term that 30 percent of his cabinet nominations would be women. Women hold 17 percent of seats in the National Assembly. In line with the law, which states that women must hold 50 percent of parties’ proportionally allocated representative seats in the National Assembly, 24 of the 47 proportional representatives were women as of August. The law provides for equal pay for equal work, but the gender pay gap was 36.5 percent in 2018, an increase of 2 percent from the previous year.

Birth Registration: Citizenship requires one parent be a citizen at the time of birth. Authorities also grant citizenship in circumstances where parentage is unclear or if the child would otherwise be stateless. The law requires that all children be registered in family registries and prohibits adoption of children for the first week after birth.

Child Abuse: The law criminalizes serious injury and repeated abuse of children, and provides prison terms of between five years and life.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare reported a 6.6-percent increase in reported child abuse cases from 2017 to 2018, attributed in part to increased public awareness and expanded child welfare reporting requirements.

The ministry required human rights training for the 1,095 childcare workers associated with their DreamStart program, a program that provides educational, health, and developmental services for disadvantaged children and their families.

In May a mother in Seoul reported child abuse to police after finding bruises on her two children after they returned from a daycare center. Police were unable to find evidence because the daycare center’s closed-circuit television (CCTV) storage device was not functioning. By law daycare centers are required to have working CCTV equipment and keep video recordings for at least 60 days. The president of the Korea Child Abuse Prevention Association said daycare directors often delete CCTV footage, opting to pay a fine in lieu of facing legal repercussions for child abuse. Parents also faced difficulties obtaining CCTV footage because privacy law may expose the parents to legal reprisals. If a video recording contains threatening words towards the child, the parent may use it as evidence of abuse; however, if the recording contains a conversation between two teachers, for example, the parent could face charges for violating the Protection of Communications Secrets Act that protects private conversations.

Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum legal age for men and women to marry is 18. There were no reported cases of forced marriage.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The age of consent is 13. It is illegal to deceive or pressure anyone younger than 19 into having sexual intercourse. In July a law went into effect penalizing adults who have sexual intercourse with teenagers between ages 13 and 16 by taking advantage of mental, physical, or financial difficulties, regardless of whether the minor consented. The penalty for rape of a minor younger than age 13 ranges from 10 years to life in prison; the penalty for rape of a minor age 13 to under 19 is five years’ to life imprisonment. Other penalties include electronic monitoring of offenders, public release of their personal information, and reversible hormone treatment. The law prohibits the commercialization of child pornography. Offenders convicted of producing or possessing child pornography materials for the purpose of selling, leasing, or distributing for profit are subject to a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment. In addition anyone who possesses child pornography may be fined up to 20 million won ($16,600).

During the year, the criminal appeals court of the Seoul Central District Court came under fire for sentencing the operator of a dark-web child pornography website, Son Jong-woo, to only 18 months in prison. In October authorities from 38 countries arrested more than 330 users of the website, including 223 South Koreans. In March 2018 the trial court suspended the 18-month sentence, saying Son had “acknowledged his crime and reflected on his wrongdoing.” The appeals court overruled the trial court suspension, calling it too light and reinstated the sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment. These decisions highlighted the light sentences, a fine or suspended sentence, typically given to those convicted of viewing child pornography. For example, in January courts ordered a defendant to pay a fine of three million won ($2,490) for downloading child pornography 968 times during a 10-month period. The court stated that it “took into consideration the fact that it was a first-time offense and that the defendant was sorry for what he had done.”

Children, especially runaway girls, were vulnerable to sex trafficking, including through online recruitment.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data/reported-cases.html.

The Jewish community numbered approximately 1,000 individuals, almost all expatriates. There were no reports of anti-Semitic acts. See the Department of State’s International Religious Freedom Report at www.state.gov/religiousfreedomreport/.

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at https://www.state.gov/trafficking-in-persons-report/.

The law prohibits discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, or mental disabilities and sets penalties for deliberate discrimination of up to three years in prison and a fine of 30 million won ($24,900). The law covering rights and support for persons with developmental disabilities created a special task force of prosecutors and police trained to work with persons with disabilities and their families in police investigations.

The government applied law and implemented programs to facilitate access to buildings, information, and communications for persons with disabilities. Many establishments, however, continued to disregard the laws, opting to pay fines rather than incurring expenses to make structural adjustments. The Research Institute for Differently Abled Person’s Rights Korea reported that individuals with intellectual disabilities did not receive proper education; employment rates of adults with disabilities were low; and public support for family care was inadequate.

Many local government ordinances and regulations directly discriminate against persons with disabilities, especially those with intellectual and mental disabilities, according to media reports and NGOs. Seongnam City rejected a man’s repeated requests from 2018 through June 2019 to use taxis designated for persons with disabilities because he did not use a wheelchair. The central government classified the man–who has Parkinson’s disease–as having only a grade three disability. The city stated it only allowed those with grades one and two disabilities, mentally handicapped grade three disabilities, and those in wheelchairs to use the taxi service. The NHRCK recommended the city allow the man to use the accessible taxi service until other means of transportation could be prepared, but the city refused.

The central government subsequently amended the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination against Disabled Persons, abolishing the previously used grading system that labeled persons with disabilities on a one-to-six scale based on “medical disability” to determine eligibility for social welfare benefits. The revised law sorts persons with disabilities into two classes: “severely disabled” and “not severely disabled.” The amended law reclassified persons with disabilities formerly graded one through three into the severely disabled classification; grades four to six were reclassified as not severe. All persons with disabilities are able to receive “activity support services,” a welfare service previously only available to grades one to three that helps persons who face difficulty in daily or social activities. Any person with “severe walking disabilities” may use wheelchair-accessible taxis regardless of whether the person uses a wheelchair. Nevertheless, Seongnam City continued to deny the man’s request to use the wheelchair taxi because the city’s ordinances lagged behind the revised law. The city government stated, “The man can call the taxi for the disabled in November when the city ordinance will change.”

The Ministry of Health and Welfare continued to implement a comprehensive set of policies that included encouraging provision of greater access for persons with disabilities to public and private buildings and facilities; part-time employment opportunities for persons with disabilities; and introduction of a long-term care system.

In 2018, the government operated rehabilitation hospitals in six regions and a national rehabilitation research center to increase employment opportunities and access for persons with disabilities.

The government provided a pension system for registered adults and children with disabilities, an allowance for children with disabilities younger than age 18 in households with an income below or near the National Basic Livelihood Security Standard, and a disability allowance for low-income persons age 18 and older with mild disabilities.

Children with disabilities had access to a separate system of public special education schools for children ages three to 17. All public and private schools, child-care centers, educational facilities, and training institutions were required to provide equipment and other resources to accommodate students with disabilities.

As of July 2018, more than 2.3 million foreigners (including an estimated 330,000 undocumented migrants) lived in the country, which otherwise had a racially homogeneous population of approximately 51.4 million. The country lacks a comprehensive antidiscrimination law. In October, President Moon met with religious leaders and called for them to support the comprehensive antidiscrimination law. The National Assembly has been reluctant to take up the issue due to the outspoken opposition from powerful conservative Christian groups who wish to block the bill because of the LGBTI rights it would afford.

Societal discrimination against ethnic and racial minorities was common but underreported. A large majority of immigrants and naturalized citizens were female spouses, and they were reportedly often the victim of domestic violence. The NHRCK stated most of the foreign worker cases involved enforced eviction or mistreatment in detention centers when detained on charges of violating immigration laws.

Some children of immigrants suffered from discrimination and lack of access to social resources. Some children of non-Korean ethnicity or multiple ethnicities also experienced bullying because of their physical appearance.

In response to the steady growth of ethnic minorities, due largely to the increasing number of migrant workers and foreign brides, the Ministries of Gender Equality and Family and of Employment and Labor implemented programs to promote cultural diversity and assist foreign workers, spouses, and multicultural families to adjust to living in the country.

The law that established the NHRCK prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and authorizes the NHRCK to review cases of such discrimination, but the law does not specify discrimination based on gender identity. The Military Criminal Act’s “disgraceful conduct” clause criminalizes consensual sodomy between men in the military with up to two years’ imprisonment if convicted. In 2016 the Constitutional Court ruled the clause constitutional.

NGOs noted the Military Service Act prohibiting homosexual sex led to abuse of LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) soldiers. According to the MHRC, as of August at least three new cases were prosecuted under the Military Criminal Act’s “disgraceful conduct” clause. The MHRC stated the navy sought out LGBTI service members under the pretext of counseling and in at least one case interrogated one person within earshot of other service members. The MHRC added that investigators asked for detailed accounts of sexual interactions between soldiers and searched soldiers’ cell phones for evidence of homosexual relationships. The navy stated it regretted the leaking of sensitive personal information but held that it has the authority to conduct investigations of disorderly conduct under the Military Criminal Act and Defense Ministry policy. According to Amnesty International, the criminalization of LGBTI relationships in the military has a significant impact on broader societal attitudes as half of the country’s population goes through compulsory military service.

According to polling by the NHRCK, 92 percent of LGBTI were worried about becoming the target of hate crimes. After a number of protestors attacked the parade in 2018, 3,000 police officers were on hand to protect the LGBTI community at the 2019 Seoul Pride Festival. “The presence of embassy staff from around the world meant that the police had to ensure the safety of the event,” according to the BBC.

The law protects the right to confidentiality of persons with HIV/AIDS and prohibits discrimination against them. Local NGOs contended, however, that persons with HIV/AIDS continued to suffer from societal discrimination and social stigma. In January the NHRCK urged a hospital to take corrective action after it refused to conduct a comprehensive medical checkup to an HIV-positive person because the hospital wing that handles checkups lacked the proper protective equipment. After the patient filed a complaint, the hospital stated it had obtained all of the protective equipment and completed the necessary staff training.