Human Rights Commission: "Forcing Psychiatric Hospital Inpatients to Clean Their Rooms Constitutes a Human Rights Violation"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] On the 20th, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea judged that the act of psychiatric medical institutions forcing inpatients to clean their hospital rooms constitutes a human rights violation and recommended improvements to the practice as well as guidance and supervision by the relevant local governments.

According to the Human Rights Commission, complainant A filed a complaint stating that from June to November last year, while hospitalized at psychiatric medical institution B, inpatients had to take turns cleaning the hospital rooms daily, and when refusing to do so, conflicts arose with other patients, making it difficult to maintain a harmonious hospital life.

In response, the hospital claimed, "Separate staff are responsible for cleaning common areas such as hallways, and only individual rooms are cleaned and maintained voluntarily by inpatients taking turns, with no coercion involved."

However, the Human Rights Commission did not accept the hospital’s claim, considering that under hospital B’s operating system and long-standing practices, cleaning by patients was taken for granted, and that patients who did not wish to clean or refused the existing cleaning methods could not maintain good relationships with fellow patients, meaning inpatients had no choice but to perform cleaning duties regardless of their consent.

The Human Rights Commission stated, "The hospital director’s failure to hire separate cleaning staff and maintaining cleanliness solely through long-term inpatients constitutes forced labor in violation of the Mental Health Welfare Act," adding, "It is judged to infringe upon the constitutional rights to pursue happiness and bodily freedom. We recommend that the hospital director improve the practice and that the relevant county governor provide guidance and supervision to prevent similar acts in psychiatric medical institutions within their jurisdiction."

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