NHRCK: "National Assembly Agrees to Accept Recommendation to Improve Gender Imbalance in Political Sphere"

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) announced on the 16th that the National Assembly has decided to accept its recommendation to improve gender imbalance in the political sphere.

On May 12 last year, the NHRCK recommended to the Speaker of the National Assembly and the leaders of each political party to apply the candidate quota system for National Assembly and local council members to constituency seats as well, and to amend the Political Relations Act and each party’s constitution and bylaws to ensure that a specific gender does not exceed 60%.

The proportion of female members in the 21st National Assembly is 19%, ranking 121st out of 190 countries worldwide according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union standards. This is below the global average of 25.6% as of 2021. Among 253 constituency members, only 29 are women, accounting for just 11.5%. Furthermore, the nomination rate of female candidates for local government heads is very low; there has never been a female metropolitan government head in history, and the proportion of female heads of basic local governments remains at 3.5%.

In response, the National Assembly reported that numerous amendment bills related to resolving gender imbalance, including the Political Parties Act, Public Official Election Act, and Political Funds Act, have been proposed and referred to the Administration and Security Committee. It added that it will conduct in-depth reviews through plenary sessions, alternative debates, review reports, and the bill examination subcommittee to strive for improving gender imbalance in the political sphere.

Ruling parties in the National Assembly, including the People Power Party, Basic Income Party, Democratic Party of Korea, Transition Korea Party, and Justice Party, also expressed their agreement with the intent and purpose of the NHRCK’s recommendation and responded that they will endeavor to reflect the recommendation level in their party constitutions and bylaws.

The NHRCK stated, "Regarding the recommendation to amend each party’s constitution and bylaws and to establish and disclose gender statistics of key party officials, the responses from each party did not reach the level expected by the NHRCK," but added, "Since each party is promoting education for discovering and nurturing female politicians and responded that they will actively accept and reflect the NHRCK’s recommendations, we consider that the recommendations have been partially accepted."

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