Social service agent

Conscripts enrolled as a Social Service Personnel receive three weeks of basic military training at the Army Training Center, the Homeland Division, the Jeju Defense Command or the Naval Education Command. Conscripts whose period of military training received from an educational institution exceeds basic military education and do not receive military training.[6]

Training carried out after deployment includes remunerated education and job training. Social Service Personnel who have completed education receive further training by other Social Service Personnel. Refinement education is a five-day camp under the auspices of the local Military Manpower Administration, which conducts job training after basic military training and the termination of refinement education. The head of the relevant central administrative agency conducts the training. The Korea Fire Service provides job training for one week at the central fire school after placement.[6]

Among the Supplementary service in the Republic of Korea, the social service personnel system is a system that enforces non-military work by conscription for those who are difficult to serve on active duty and are not suitable. This is compulsory labor because it does not constitute "any work or service exacted in virtue of compulsory military service laws for work of a purely military character;" which does not constitute "For the purposes of this Convention the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily." according to the ILO Forced Labour Convention.[7]

Subject to Social Service are Lower physical grade and Criminal record.

• Person with Determination of lower physical grade from conscription examination: Person with Psycial grade 4 from Conscription physical examination
• Person with Criminal record
  • Sentenced person to 6 months or over and below 1 year 6 months imprisonment
  • Person to a suspended sentence of 1 year or over imprisonment

Among them, the criteria for physical characteristics, diseases, and disabilities that are subject to social service personnel after being disposed of as supplementary service by phycial grade 4 are as follows:

• Physical characteristics, illness, disability
  • Weight
    • Underweight with a under BMI 16
    • High obesity with a BMI 35 or higher(For adults, 175 centimeters tall and weighs 108 kilograms or more. High obesity between BMI 30 and 34.9 is Subject to Active duty by Physical grade 3.)
  • a Lumbar disc that Requires surgery
  • In the case of surgery for Early gastric cancer or Early colorectal cancer
  • Basal cell carcinoma
• Mental characteristics, illness, disability
  • Anxiety disorder, Panic disorder, and Obsessive compulsive disorder, etc.(In minor cases, they may be subject to active duty by physical grade 3)
  • Borderline intellectual functioning
  • Autism spectrum disorder with High functioning
  • Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Learning disorder(In minor cases, they may be Subject to Active duty by Physical grade 3)

Despite these physical or mental problems, there are criticisms such as "Patient abuse", "Disability draft" and "forced labor of physically or mentally challenged people" over mandatory alternative service (mandatory military training when calling up alternative services).

Critics say that it is also a "trick to avoid controversy over forced labor" to allow active-duty soldiers to join the military if they want to be dispatched as Supplementary service under the revised Military Service Act from October 2021.[8][9]

This means that in a country of All volunteer military system, those who fail in the physical examination standards of military applicants, who only recruit pure applicants, must serve in active service or mandatory alternative service under the conscription system in South Korea.

Problems arising from having people without qualifications for specific tasks (special teacher qualifications, social worker qualifications, etc.) serve in special schools, welfare facilities, etc. according to the social service system, and public officials in public institutions instruct social service personnel to perform unqualified tasks(Tasks related to personal information, etc.) There are also criminal cases by social service personnel that occur as a result of problems.

This is an assault on a disabled student at a special school, including an assault by a Social service personnel at a Special school in Seoul in 2018.[10] and These are the 2020 "Nth Room case", etc.[11] caused by the leakage of personal information by social service personnel in public institutions.

Due to the issue, a group called the "Social service personnel Union" is demanding the abolition of the social service system, including a demonstration called the "Gutgeoni burning ceremony" in front of the Seoul Regional Military Manpower Administration on April 20, 2022.[12]

In particular, April 20, 2022 is the day of the International Labor Organization's forced labor agreement in South Korea and also the Disabled day(South Korea's Disabled day is April 20 every year).

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Social Service Personnel system is a form of forced labor. According to the ILO Forced Labour Convention, military conscription itself does not qualify as forced labour, but national mobilization for non-military work, such as Industrial Technical Personnel(산업기능요원), Social Service Personnel(사회복무요원) does. South Korea did not join the 29/105 Convention, which prohibits forced labour. South Korea criticized the Japanese military's kidnapping comfort women and Hashima's forced recruitment of Koreans as forced labour,[13] but rejects the comparison with the social service system.[14] Of the 187 member states of the ILO, nine have not ratified the ILO Core Conventions 29 and 105, including the Republic of Korea.[15][16]

On May 30, 2019, former Social Service Personnel "Lee da Hoon[17] (23 years old)," together with dozens of citizens, held a press conference in front of the Constitutional Court to urge the abolition of the Social Service Personnel system and ratification of ILO Core Convention 105. He called for a constitutional appeal trial for the Social Service Personnel system.[18]

The 50 attendees included current and former Social Service Personnel. They advocated the end of the Social Service Personnel system that forces young men who cannot qualify for military service due to physical or mental limitations to carry out other labour. They also urged the government to ratify ILO Core Conventions 29 and 105.

The Republic of Korea and the National Assembly introduced the National Defense Service in 1969. Its main task is to carry out labour unrelated to military affairs and is inconsistent with the purpose and intent of the military service system. As of 2019, hundreds of billions of treasury losses had occurred. The system extracted labour from nearly four million men in their twenties.

Social Service Personnel are remanded to assist administrative agencies and social welfare facilities. Regular employees delegate tasks to Social Service Personnel. Social Service Personnel are not trained to perform such tasks, with unknown effects on results.

Most Social Service Personnel serve in social welfare facilities with a Psycial grade 4 award for mental or physical illness.

In 2017, protesters solicited a constitutional petition for remuneration of Social Service Personnel, but this was not granted.

Protesters claimed that politicians and others were allowed to take advantage of this system to escape military service even though they had no physical impairments.

South Korean government insisted that the Social Service Personnel system is not a forced labour, but each time the ILO Secretariat issued a statement that the system violates the convention.

South Korean government modified parts of the Social Service Personnel system in October 2019, so Social Service Personnel can "choose" to serve as a military personnel if they want to - even though they were disqualified to serve in military because of their physical, mental limitations in the first place. The government insists that it is no longer a forced labour, because they give them a choice to whether to serve in military or serve in civil sector.[19]

A Social Service Personnel serving in Seocho 1-dong Community Center in 2016 was found dead on June 22, 2016.[20] The media reported suicide, but it is not yet known how he died. The deceased was found to have experienced severe depression.

In December 2019, it was confirmed that a civil servant who had been hired for less than one to two months had instructed a Social Service Personnel to sort 35,000 masks by himself.[21] The relevant official posted a letter stating that a Social Service Personnel was unable to perform this task. "I asked the Social Service Personnel to distribute the goods in envelopes, and I had a hard look," she said. This stimulated a controversy, leading the official to delete his post and offer an apology. "I apologize for not thinking in advance that rash behavior will hurt someone," she said. "There was a problem with my behavior entirely, and through conversations I learned a false perception I didn't even think about. I will change my preoccupied thoughts and actions. ”

An anonymous former Social Service Personnel published a website written in English to reveal how Social Service Personnel are treated in South Korea.[22]

Lee Da-hun submitted 13 chapters of amicus curiae briefs on 9 January 2019 to the panel of experts during the final stage of the European Union-Korea free trade agreement dispute resolution process proposed by the EU in the absence of ILO ratification efforts.

The Expert Panel for Dispute Resolution was to begin on 30 December 2019, and finish before 30 March 2020, when a report on whether the system violated the FTA. In that case the EU can implements sanctions, such as tariffs, IPR regulations, and foreign investment reductions.