Busan Human Rights Center (BHRC) is getting many reports of human rights abuse during job-hunting. This program is for those who are in a situation of human rights violation when they are getting a job, like an interview or exam, especially young people who are preparing to get a job. 

BHRC is accepting many cases of human rights violations that had occurred in the course of employment. Human rights violations that occur in the hiring process include explicit evaluation of appearance, hiring of a specific gender unrelated to work, blasphemy using pressured interviews as an excuse, and demands for unnecessary documents. 

Even if there are human rights violations during the employment process, most job seekers do not argue or protest over them. In a survey of 1,210 job seekers of “Saram-in,” job platform, 43.6% answered that they had experienced unfair employment experiences, and 31.3% chose “unrelated questions like personal questions” as specific experience. Also, in the question about which is the most unfair question during the interview, 30.7% answered “question about values of religion and politics.”

The BHRC will continue to accept more cases of human rights violations from job seekers, and they are planning to collaborate with the human rights centers of each university. Yang Sung-Min, president of BHRC said, “We will take legal action for illegal issues and make policy recommendations so that other issues can be corrected.”

The BHRC opened on December 10th, and it is a central organization that proposes human rights policies and carries out specific human rights activities. Also, it is a key organization of human rights that follows the Human Rights Commission in Busan. It is conducting many supporting projects such as human rights education, campaigns, book coffee shops, and human rights club.

Reporter Shin Yu-Jun

Translated by Yun Chae-Eun