The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) recommended that the minister of Health and welfare amend the ‘Welfare of Disabled Persons Act’ to legally provide for a personal assistant service system in order to promote full social participation by severely disabled persons.
On January 25, 2006, Kyeong-Seok Park (representative of the National Alliance for Elimination of Discrimination Against the Disabled) and disabled persons filed a complaint with the Commission, saying that “Since numerous people with severe disabilities cannot lead independent daily and social lives in many respects including looking after themselves, having meals, going out, and moving through facilities, the central government should stipulate personal assistant services.”
The Commission has surveyed people at all levels of society on their opinions on disabled people’s living conditions, conducted meetings, and held international workshops to seek ways to promote proactive social participation by disabled persons. According to the findings from its 2006 survey on severely-handicapped people’s living conditions, countries such as the US, Japan, Germany, Sweden, UK, and Australia provide assurances for disabled people’s involvement in local communities by law.
The findings have also revealed that Korea’s Welfare of Disabled Persons Act does not contain detailed provisions to specifically attain its goal and purport despite the fact that it is an act aimed at promoting disabled people’s participation in social activities. In other words, the specific scope of the central government’s obligation to support disabled persons’ social participation has yet to be established, although the goal and purport of the act are crystal-clear.
Under these circumstances, the Commission determined that the right to belong to a local community in order to enjoy individual dignity and be duly acknowledged as valuable citizens should not be denied on grounds of disabilities or according to the severity or type of disabilities. Accordingly, it decided that personal assistant services must be stipulated by law.
People with severe physical disabilities have experienced substantial restrictions in social participation. As they can hardly function in daily life without the assistance from others, they have depended heavily on their families or volunteer workers or lived in accommodation facilities for the disabled against their will. Notwithstanding the desire of people with severe disabilities to lead normal daily lives, their rights to humane lives as guaranteed by the Constitution are limited due to the inadequacies of the welfare system. Therefore, the central government must redress the situation and guarantee, by law, their right to humane, dignified lives.
The Commission decided to make said recommendation based on its judgment that the personal assistant service system should be expressly provided for in the Welfare of Disabled Persons Act and that relevant provisions be established to guarantee disabled people’s rights.
