Abandon discriminatory HIV policy

By Ben Wagner

Law



Mandatory AIDS tests for foreign teachers were instituted in 2007 shortly after Christopher Paul Neil, an English teacher working in Korea, was arrested in Thailand for the sexual abuse of children in Southeast Asia.

Most assume that Neil was the reason the tests were introduced. Even official documents mention Neil and explain the tests provide "protection" for young students.

The arrest of Neil, however, merely provided the opportunity; the motive for AIDS testing foreign teachers was present much earlier.

"The recent case of Christopher Paul Neil could be said to have brought the issue to the surface," an unnamed Ministry of Justice official explained to The Korea Herald back in 2007, but "we have been drawing up the new regulations for some time." As the official notes, there was more going on beneath the surface before the Neil incident presented itself.

In early 2005, a small but determined group of Korean vigilantes began stalking foreign English teachers (sometimes for months at a time) and feeding the press with sordid stories of their relations with Korean women. Their goal was to influence public opinion and push the government for the means to deport "illegal English teachers" from the country.

This group presented itself as a collection of "concerned citizens" working tirelessly for the good of society. In reality, the group has little concern for or connection with Korean society. Instead, it represents a grotesque combination of xenophobia, racism and misogyny that is as likely to attack Korean women as it is foreign men who teach English.

Indeed, after photographs of Korean women with foreign men at a nightclub party were distributed on the internet, one of the women pictured explained that this group`s website called them "Westerners` whores" and "prostitutes." The women`s personal information was also released and they were harassed, "suffering incredible mental anguish" that required "psychiatric treatment."

This group was also responsible for several news articles including, "Tracking AIDS-Suspicious Foreign Instructors on the Blacklist," (Break News) "White English Teacher Threatens Korean Woman with AIDS," (Chosun Ilbo) and "Beware of the Ugly White English Teacher" (Chosun Sports).

The first of these articles, published in 2006, has a quote provided by the group that has become very significant:

"At an AIDS testing center for foreigners, 80 percent of those requesting tests were foreign English teachers."

The articles reinforce the dangerous and ignorant message that being tested for AIDS is "suspicious." In fact, voluntary HIV testing is recommended by the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and doctors everywhere, as part of routine medical care. Indeed, the World Health Organization has urged voluntary HIV testing and counseling as the best strategy for eliminating the spread of HIV. These foreign English teachers should have been held up as examples of correct behavior and prudent action for responsible Korean citizens everywhere; instead they were vilified as depraved and dangerous.

Three years later, and the group`s leader still uses the same type of quotes to frighten Koreans into agreeing with his twisted views.

In a 2009 article in the Kyunghyang Shinmun, he explained that "80 percent of those seeking advice at an AIDS counseling center in Itaewon were foreign white collar workers and English teachers." And now, this group has managed to get this same quote placed in the official record of a Bill pending before the National Assembly Legislation and Judiciary Committee that calls foreigners a "threat" to "our people`s health."

Rather than promoting the idea that everyone, Koreas and non-Koreans alike, should seek voluntary testing for HIV, this group`s leader is determined to manipulate the public`s fear in order to promote his own agenda, even if it means putting the Korean population at risk.

As Shin Surin, the Director of Director of the AIDS Prevention Association of Korea, has explained, "the HIV/AIDS testing rate in Korea is low because people are afraid of the stigma attached to the disease ... As long as stigma, prejudice, and discrimination persist in society, it is easy to imagine that the HIV testing rate will remain low."

And as long as there are groups that seek to increase that stigma, prejudice and discrimination by portraying AIDS as a "foreigners` disease," Koreans living with HIV/AIDS will remain undiagnosed and unknowingly spread the disease in society.

As the Seoul High Court explained in the landmark "Heo" decision, "the most dangerous thing for society is not persons who are infected with HIV and aware of their status, but persons who are infected with the disease and unaware of their status."

"In the final analysis," the Court explained, "encouraging the public to voluntarily receive HIV testing by protecting the human rights of people living with HIV/AIDS is the most effective policy for preventing the spread of the disease."

This will be difficult as long as misguided groups continue to heap stigma and prejudice upon the disease; fortunately, however, Korea has enlightened groups and institutions that are interested in both protecting human rights and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Realizing that the two are conjoined -- and that by protecting the human rights of non-citizens, the Republic of Korea can better protect the health of the nation and ensure its prosperity -- the Secretary General of the United Nations has recommended that Korea abandon its current discriminatory HIV policy.

For the good of the nation, non-citizens and citizens alike hope that the advice of the U.N. secretary general is heeded.



Benjamin K. Wagner is a professor of law at Kyunghee University Law School, a Center for International Human Rights research fellow, and a U.S. attorney (Hawaii State Bar). The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of The Korea Herald. He can be contacted at khu.lawschool@gmail.com -- Ed.