Gwangju City Significantly Strengthens Human Rights Policies and Impact Assessments This Year

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 7th that it will strengthen its human rights policies this year to promote citizens' human rights and supplement existing human rights policies in accordance with the revision of the "Basic Act on Past Affairs Settlement for Truth and Reconciliation."

First, to enhance the effectiveness of the "Gwangju Human Rights Charter," which is Gwangju's future blueprint as a human rights city and a practical norm for promoting citizens' human rights, the city will collaborate with the Gwangju Metropolitan Office of Education, the National Health Insurance Service, and others to analyze and evaluate human rights indicators.

The human rights indicators evaluate the improvement performance compared to the previous year for 73 indicators such as citizens' privacy protection index, citizens' administrative participation rate, resolution rate of unpaid wages, suicide rate, and school violence occurrence rate, and the results will be disclosed to the public.

For underperforming indicators, consulting support will be provided through one-on-one matching between human rights experts, including members of the Human Rights Promotion Citizens' Committee, and responsible public officials to improve them.

The "Creating Human Rights Villages" project, which solves problems within villages from a human rights perspective, will be improved this year by having about 20 participating villages organize lists of human rights issues and propose a "one village, one agenda" to prioritize solutions, maximizing effectiveness.

Additionally, the globally significant issue of the "climate crisis" will be addressed through joint projects where participating villages cooperate to solve it from a human rights perspective.

Efforts will also focus on preemptively eliminating human rights violations caused by administrative actions.

Human rights impact assessments will be conducted and guidelines prepared from the design stage for public buildings expected to be heavily used by citizens, such as Hanam Municipal Library and facilities for people with disabilities, to actively reflect human rights considerations in public building construction.

Regarding human rights violations, discrimination, workplace sexual harassment, and sexual violence occurring in city-related institutions such as Gwangju City, autonomous districts, invested and funded institutions, and private consignment institutions, human rights ombudsmen composed of experts will strengthen activities including counseling, investigation, relief efforts, and holding on-site explanatory meetings.

The 11th World Human Rights Cities Forum this year will expand its programs and participants.

The World Human Rights Cities Forum, co-hosted with UN human rights organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNESCO, is scheduled to be held from October 7 to 10 at the Kim Dae-jung Convention Center.

It aims to strengthen networks with domestic and international human rights cities (253 cities in 76 countries), overseas cooperation organizations, and prepare for the participation of about 3,000 domestic and international human rights activists in over 40 programs including the KOICA Global Human Rights Training Project.

To enable citizens to create a new human rights culture integrated with culture in their daily lives, the city plans to discover and operate a "Citizen Participation Human Rights Culture Expansion Project" in cooperation with cultural-related institutions.

For fostering and practicing democratic citizenship awareness, the Democratic Citizenship University will operate education programs tailored to citizens' perspectives, focusing on activating participatory democracy, cultivating community consciousness and leadership, and building a warm society without discrimination. The education will be conducted throughout the city year-round, centered on citizen participation, practice, and discussion.

The city will also promote the phased elimination of pro-Japanese remnants in the region. To establish a correct historical understanding for future generations, it plans to complete the installation of condemnation plaques and guide signs for seven remaining Japanese colonial remnants on private properties and elsewhere.

To commemorate the spirit of sacrifice and democracy of the Gwangju March 15 Uprising and the April 19 Revolution, the Gwangju March 15 Uprising monument and the April 19 Revolution memorial tower will be completed by August. In accordance with the revision of the "Basic Act on Past Affairs Settlement for Truth and Reconciliation," the city will also pursue truth verification regarding civilian mass casualty incidents around the Korean War period, human rights violations and terrorism by forces hostile to the Republic of Korea, and other human rights violations caused by unjust exercise of public authority.

Kim Yong-man, Director of the Democratic Human Rights Division of the city, said, "We will continue to discover new policies to protect citizens' human rights and strive to make Gwangju a just city where human rights policies are felt directly by citizens."

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