Adding Women to Emergency Exit Signs?… Ministry of the Interior and Safety and Fire Agency "Never Considered"

Report on the 12th: "Addition of Women to Era Changes"
Relevant Ministries "We Don't Know Why This Article Was Published"

The government denied reports in the media that it is considering adding a female figure wearing a skirt to emergency exit signs, stating that “there has been no discussion on this.”

On the 12th, multiple media outlets, citing the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, reported that “to reduce public confusion during large-scale disasters, there are plans to unify various types of disaster shelters currently in operation,” and that “in line with changing times, a plan to add a female figure to the emergency exit signs, which have been exclusively male for 52 years, is being considered.”

After the news was released, various online communities and social media platforms were flooded with criticism, including comments such as “This is regressive” and “It is a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

Criticism also came from the political sphere. Heo Eun-ah, the preparatory committee chairperson for the Reform New Party (tentative name), posted on her SNS that day, “You should not play around with taxpayers’ money,” and pointed out, “No one looks at that mark and thinks it means only men should evacuate.”

As the controversy grew, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the National Fire Agency issued a joint statement in the afternoon to clarify their position. The two ministries stated in the briefing materials that “there have been no specific decisions made regarding changes to the emergency exit sign designs.”

A Ministry of the Interior and Safety official added, “Emergency exit signs are not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, so there is no department that can review changes,” and said, “We do not know why such articles have been published.”

Regarding the female symbol pictogram for the emergency exit sign reported in the media, they explained, “It is not an official government draft but was presented arbitrarily,” and added, “Even if the design is changed in the future, it will be applied only to newly installed signs, not replacing existing ones, so there is no concern about wasting the budget.”

The emergency exit sign design was created after a fire at the Sennichi Department Store in Osaka, Japan, on May 13, 1972, which killed 118 people. The Japanese government concluded that the damage was severe because the emergency exit signs were difficult to distinguish, and thus held a contest to create the pictogram. It is now adopted as a global standard and has been used in Korea since 1992.

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