NHRCK: "Government and Local Government Promotional Materials Still Use Hate Speech Based on Gender, Race, and Disability"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] A survey by the National Human Rights Commission revealed that expressions and images containing stereotypes and prejudices against social minorities are still being used in promotional materials by the government and local governments.

On the 10th, the Human Rights Commission announced the results of monitoring hate speech in government promotional materials. From March this year for two months, the Commission examined hate speech in press releases, card news, infographics, videos, and other materials published on the websites and YouTube channels of 18 government ministries. The monitoring focused on three areas: gender, disability, and race/immigrants.

As a result, a total of 760 cases of sexist expressions were found. By type, gender representation imbalance accounted for 35%, gender role stereotypes and prejudices 28%, and family-related stereotypes and prejudices about 20%. Specifically, the Commission explained that there was a high proportion of images depicting women as dependent, subsidiary, or peripheral beings, or portraying women as service industry workers and men as field workers, revealing gender role stereotypes related to occupations.

Regarding disability, 16 prohibited expressions and 18 expressions containing prejudices and stereotypes against people with disabilities were found. In detail, expressions such as "normal person" or "general public" were used as opposites to people with disabilities, and despite the term being changed to "intellectual disability" in 2008, the outdated term "mental retardation" was still used in some cases.

Additionally, 150 cases of stereotypical, prejudiced, or hateful expressions against race and immigrants were found. Images that could foster prejudice, such as foreign English teachers depicted as blonde white people and undocumented foreigners shown with dark brown curly hair, were still prevalent.

The Human Rights Commission pointed out, "Government promotional materials have a public characteristic as a communication channel for national policies, so the choice of content, words, and images greatly influences citizens' perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Although direct hate speech has decreased and discriminatory expressions have weakened, expressions and images containing stereotypes and prejudices against social minorities are still being used."

They added, "There is a need for the government to review and supplement the current system for publishing and distributing government promotional materials. Based on the results of this monitoring, we hope fundamental measures such as improving regulations and inspection procedures related to promotional materials and providing education to enhance public officials' human rights sensitivity can be established."

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