Human Rights Commission: Asking "Will you wear a hijab?" in job interviews is discrimination in itself

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Jung-yoon] The National Human Rights Commission has ruled that asking about the intention to wear a hijab during a job interview, unrelated to the work, constitutes discrimination in itself.

On the 4th, the Human Rights Commission accepted a complaint filed by an applicant for an NGO translation and interpretation internship and recommended the NGO chairperson, who was the interviewer at the time, to "establish measures to prevent recurrence so that discrimination does not occur due to religious-related questions unrelated to job duties."

Earlier, in June 2019, the complainant reported to the Human Rights Commission that they were rejected from the recruitment after hearing from the interviewer that "people who wear hijabs cannot work together because it hinders working with people from various countries."

In response, the respondent interviewer claimed, "During the interview, I asked, 'Here, people from various countries work, and Muslim employees from other countries do not wear hijabs while working in Korea; how about you?' The complainant caused a disturbance, claiming racial discrimination."

They added, "Regardless of the hijab-wearing issue, the complainant was rated low on attitude scores due to being late for the interview and not attaching a self-introduction letter, and also received low scores in vocabulary skills for accuracy and comprehension, so they were not hired."

The Human Rights Commission stated, "It is difficult to conclude that the complainant was rejected from the internship solely because of wearing a hijab," partially accepting the interviewer's claim. However, it judged that questions related to wearing a hijab constitute discriminatory treatment in themselves and that there was no reasonable justification for such questions.

The Commission pointed out, "Since interviews are not a place where interviewers and applicants communicate on equal footing, if questions concern socially marginalized groups, they inevitably affect hiring decisions," citing that countries such as Germany, the UK, and Japan consider questions unrelated to job duties or work ability as discrimination.

It added, "Asking about the intention to wear a hijab could likely have been perceived by the complainant as implying that wearing a hijab would result in not being hired," and "It would have been sufficient for the complainant to predict that they would be disadvantaged in hiring or face significant restrictions even if hired."

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