Paju-si, City Council Budget Cuts... Red Light for Women-Friendly City Development Project

City Council Cuts 126 Million Won from Budget for Creating Women-Friendly City in Preliminary Review
City Expresses Concern Over Gender Equality Setback Including Gender Violence Prevention Due to Inability to Re-designate Women-Friendly City

When the Paju City Council's Autonomy and Administration Committee preliminarily reviewed the budget and cut 126 million KRW from the budget for the Women-Friendly City Creation Project, Paju City expressed concern that it would be unable to carry out specialized projects such as promoting women's social participation and preventing gender-based violence to create a safe community over the past four years.

Paju City Hall exterior. Provided by Paju City

On the 5th, the Paju City Council's Autonomy and Administration Committee cut 126 million KRW from the 142 million KRW budget for the Women-Friendly City Creation Project. In response, Paju City explained that it has become difficult to operate various consultative bodies that discuss and collaborate with citizens to create a gender-equal community, making it impossible to gather opinions from citizens and experts during the planning and implementation of projects. Furthermore, it will cause setbacks in preventing digital sex crimes against children and adolescents, such as deepfakes, which have recently become a major issue.

Starting with Iksan City in 2009, the Women-Friendly City Creation Project aimed at building gender-equal communities is currently being promoted by 104 local governments nationwide, including 15 cities and counties in Gyeonggi Province such as Suwon, Yongin, and Goyang.

Although it is not a legally mandated project, nearly half of the local governments nationwide actively participate in the Women-Friendly City Creation Project 15 years after its inception, not only because of the brand value of "gender equality" but also because citizens have witnessed tangible changes and are demanding it.

Paju City was newly designated as a Women-Friendly City in December 2020 and signed a five-year agreement with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family from 2021 to 2025. It has established various governance structures to revise laws and systems and guarantee citizen participation. The city has focused on strengthening the foundation for smooth implementation of gender equality policies, including empowering women to enhance economic and social participation and raising citizens' awareness of gender equality.

Due to these efforts, Paju City has been selected as an excellent institution for gender-responsive policies for four consecutive years. In 2023, it received an excellent evaluation as Group A in the Women-Friendly City implementation inspection, producing positive outcomes, and is preparing for re-designation review next year.

This year, Paju City independently trained a team of gender violence prevention instructors and developed customized standard lecture materials for students, conducting 124 pilot sessions of gender equality education aimed at preventing gender violence among elementary, middle, and high school students.

The deepfake incidents involving children and adolescents that shocked the nation last fall starkly revealed the tragic reality where children, who should be protected, appear not only as victims but also as perpetrators.

In response, Paju City conducted a demand survey in September targeting schools on new types of gender violence such as digital sex crimes and dating violence, receiving 643 education requests. As demand for gender violence prevention education surges, the city planned the budget to additionally train instructors, develop topic-specific standard lecture materials, and provide customized education for teachers and parents to ensure consistent gender violence prevention education at home and school next year.

Councilor Lee Jin-ah, who led the budget cut, stated that Paju City has been training unqualified instructors and that the education budget seemed like a "grab for resources by a small privileged group of women" under the guise of supporting women's organizations, explaining the reason for the budget cut.

Paju City explained that in response to Councilor Lee Jin-ah's data request, it obtained individual consent to verify the qualifications of all instructors and submitted data on their affiliations and careers on the 3rd.

According to the submitted data, more than half of the instructors are professional instructors affiliated with the Korea Institute for Gender Equality Promotion and Education, which specializes in gender equality education under the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, university professors and lecturers, and workers at gender violence counseling centers and victim support facilities recognized by Gyeonggi Province. Despite this evidence disproving Councilor Lee Jin-ah's concern that the education budget could not be allocated due to unqualified instructors, the entire education-related budget was cut.

A Paju City official said, "At this critical time before the re-designation of the Women-Friendly City, most of the budget has been cut, leaving no budget to fill in the application form for the Women-Friendly City designation, resulting in an unprecedented situation where the application cannot be submitted." The official added, "In reality, where the age of gender violence victims such as deepfake and dating murder is getting younger, the ultimate victims of the complete budget cut for education targeting children are our children."

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