[Interview] Park Junhee, Gwanak-gu Mayor: "Creating a Happy and Safe Living Space for Women"

Last Month, Selected as a 'Women-Friendly City' Designated by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family... Full-Scale Promotion of 14 Detailed Projects under 5 Major Goals, Launching a Role Model for Women's Policy

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] “As one of the pledges of the 7th elected administration, we focused our administrative capabilities on creating a women-friendly city, and as a result, last month we were selected as a ‘Women-Friendly City’ designated by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Going forward, we will build a women’s policy model tailored to local conditions to create Gwanak-gu where women’s happiness and safety are realized.”

Park Jun-hee, Mayor of Gwanak-gu, stated in an interview with Asia Economy, “We will actively promote policies for women’s happy lives, including work-family balance and women’s safety issues.”

Under the 7th elected administration, Gwanak-gu is making every effort to create a women-friendly city where women and men participate equally in the district’s development process, and where women’s empowerment, care, and safety are realized.

Since Mayor Park took office, about 50 women-friendly city resident participants have been appointed, and public-private cooperation has discovered various policy projects reflecting residents’ needs. In particular, efforts to actively address women’s safety issues stand out. For the first time nationwide, all neighborhood community centers have implemented a service lending illegal filming camera detectors, and about 200 women safety resident monitoring teams carefully watch over the safety of every corner of the neighborhood.

Also, in the area around Sillim Station, where many women live alone and the crime rate is relatively high, an SS Zone (Safe Single Zone) has been established. Efforts are being made to create an environment where women can live safely, including support for a set of four types of Safe Home, and joint patrols with autonomous crime prevention teams.

Last October, in collaboration with the local police station, a total of 52 items such as management operation systems and emergency bell installation status were diagnosed, and if conditions were met, the ‘Women’s Safe One-Room Certification’ project was implemented to certify excellent one-room units. This strengthened the public-private cooperation system. These multifaceted efforts led to the valuable achievement of being selected as a ‘Women-Friendly City’ designated by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family last December.

Mayor Park explained, “The selection as a Women-Friendly City was possible thanks to the active interest and participation of the residents,” and added, “We will hold a signing ceremony with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family this month and accelerate the project implementation.”

The district will actively promote 14 women-friendly policies from this year through 2024 with five major goals: gender-equal city, economically vibrant city, safety-based city, family-friendly city, and women-participation city.

First, to nurture local women leaders and establish a foundation for policy participation, a research project will begin this month to develop customized policies reflecting local characteristics and residents’ needs. Also, the ‘Shared Workshop,’ a space of dreams and hope supporting women’s economic independence, will newly open this month at the Sillim Women’s Classroom.

Along with this, the Sillim Women’s Classroom, which was mainly operated for women with career interruptions, will gradually expand into a ‘Work-Life Balance Support Center’ supporting work-family balance for all generations, including women. The ‘Family Culture Welfare Center,’ a comprehensive welfare and cultural space equipped with childcare and women’s facilities, will open next year, and the Gwanak-type Mother Center ‘I-rang,’ a complex cultural rest space for children and mothers, will be expanded to six locations during the term, gradually expanding infrastructure for women raising children.

In addition, the district plans to promote the ‘Gwanak Her Story Discovery’ project, which uncovers hidden stories of women’s activities in the process of regional development and history, builds them into an archive, and utilizes them as local tourism resources to boost women’s pride.

Especially, the area Mayor Park focuses on is ‘safety.’ He said, “Gwanak-gu has about 67,000 single-woman households, the highest in the country,” and added, “Women’s safety issues are an essential task that cannot be overlooked, and this year we doubled the budget related to women’s safety.”

The district plans to expand the SS Zone from the area near Sillim Station to the entire district and increase certified safe one-room units, focusing on creating women’s safe villages. In particular, smart safety lighting using advanced technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence) will be pilot-installed in March this year to predict crime or accident situations in advance and notify the smart control center so that the police can respond.

Mayor Park Jun-hee said, “In line with the 4th Industrial Revolution, we established the Smart Information Division in January this year and are striving to discover life-close projects using advanced information and communication technology (ICT),” and added, “Especially, we will use advanced technology in women’s safety-related projects to create a safer living environment.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.