The Republic of Korea borders the Popular Democratic Republic of Korea to the north with which it formed a single country until 1945. It occupies half of the Korean Peninsula and has some three thousand islands surrounding it.

According to law, it is a presidential republic with a division of powers. The Head of State is the president, elected for a single mandate of 5 years. In addition to being the highest representative of the republic and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the president also appoints the prime minister (after being approved by parliament) and presides over the State Council. The Prime Minister is the head of government and carries out many of the executive power's duties.

The Korean parliament or National Assembly is unicameral. It members rule for four years, without any limit on their mandates. The legislature currently has 299 seats, of which 243 are elected by regional vote and the remaining seats are distributed by proportional representation. There are 44 women representing 14.7% of the total seats available.

The highest judicial institution is the Supreme Court, whose judges are appointed by the president with the consent of parliament. Judicial power is formally independent.

South Korea is a member of the United Nations (its former Foreign Affairs Minister Ban Ki-Moon has been the General Secretary since 1 May 2007) and the OECD.

South Korea is the 13th economy in the world, and it is classed as a developed country by the UN, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, disability, age, social status, regional origin, national origin, ethnic origin, physical appearance or condition, civil status, pregnancy and birth, family, skin colour, political thought or opinion, a criminal record as a result of a conviction, sexual orientation or medical history are prohibited. However, traditional attitudes limit opportunities for women and disabled people.

More than 850 conscientious objectors--men who have refused to do military service for reasons of conscience--are currently in prison in South Korea serving sentences for that refusal, based on religious beliefs or moral, ethical, humanitarian, or similar reasons. In South Korea, there is no provision to protect the rights of conscientious objectors to military service and to allow them some alternative form of civil service.

The government blocks Internet sites containing violent or sexually explicit material, and demands operators to classify web pages. Pro-North Korean websites are blocked on the argument that they are injurious to public opinion. According to human rights reports, numerous telephone taps, illegal monitoring and surveillances take place. Freedom of expression and of the press is limited.

South Korea is a country of origin, transit and destination for trafficking in persons. Strict laws have been introduced to stop trafficking in persons, and victims receive some kind of assistance.

South Korea has not made as much progress as it would seem, in spite of the announcement that prohibition against travellers living with HIV/AIDS would be abolished. In the autumn of 2009, the Korean press stated that in spite of the announced policy change, the HIV test would still be necessary for work visas. The change, according to a spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice, is a change only in application and not in law; it allows greater flexibility in the deportation of foreign workers who test positive for HIV. Seropositive foreign workers who legally reside in the country shall not be deported immediately. If foreigners who test positive can be treated in Korea, they are permitted to stay. However, foreigners who are considered to be highly dangerous cases (sic) by the medical centres shall suffer restrictions. Human rights organisations have submitted reports to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, but until the courts declare that these restrictions based on the seropositive condition are unconstitutional, the Government may continue denying access and medical care to those who are HIV positive.
Several military positions have been accused of discriminating against homosexuals. This has given rise to a call for homosexuals to be able to have recourse to conscientious objection and to provide an alternative civil service. This is an option to which they have no right at present.

Elementary education is free up to age 15. The majority of children finish secondary education. North Korean children who have escaped to South Korea go to school and are exempt from all school fees. It seems that the number is on the increase. The government offers a pre-school education programme which gives priority to the most disadvantaged children. The objective is to offer at least one year of free education to the age of 5 in order that children may access standard education in equal conditions. However, financial assistance from central and local governments is sufficient for all 5-year-old children to be able to enrol on the pre-school programme. 99.8% of pre-school teachers in South Korea are qualified. Teachers in public pre-school institutions usually have a higher education because they are selected through a rigorous national exam system. Early childhood education is also taught in private schools and in institutions affiliated with public primary schools. In the primary education sector, the population concentration in urban areas results in crowded classrooms. In both primary and secondary schools, the school programme reform has reduced the number of compulsory subjects and has increased the number of optional subjects. Around 60% of students who finish secondary school continue studying in one of the 477 higher education institutions in Korea. The secondary schools and institutions offer professional and technical training programmes. Corporal punishment is prohibited in training centres for minors and child healthcare centres; the practice of corporal punishment in schools depends on each school's regulations.

A 1-year programme begins at age 5. At this level, 75% of education is private. The Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) is 54%. There are 26,141 ECE teachers (99% female). The pupil/teacher ratio (PTR) is 21: 1.

Education is compulsory between the ages of 6 and 14. Primary education begins at age 6 and lasts for 6 years. At this level, 1% of education is private. The NER is 99% (48% girls). All students who enrol on the first course reach the last course of primary school. There are 139,057 primary teachers (73% female). The PTR is 22: 1.

Secondary education begins at age 12 and lasts for 6 years. At this level, 36% of education is private. 31% of secondary school students take technical training courses. The NER is 96%. There are 206,163 secondary teachers, 93,895 (63% female) in lower secondary and 112,268 (37% female) in upper secondary schools. The PTR is 20 : 1 in lower secondary and 16 : 1 in upper secondary education.

3,219,216 students (39% female) study in tertiary institutions, with a gross enrolment rate of 100%. At this level, 81% of education is private. 7,843 foreign students study in Korea, the majority come from Asia (6,224), Central and Eastern Europe (215), Latin America and the Caribbean (118), sub-Saharan Africa (68), North America and Western Europe (41) and the Arab States (30). At the same time, 95.885 Korean students study abroad, especially in the USA (52,484), Japan (23,280), Germany (5,488), Australia (3,915) and the UK (3,482). Korea recently embarked on an experimental project to analyse on-line education and to identify the appropriate rules and policies to manage a virtual university.

Discrimination against people with disabilities is prohibited in education and other public services. Companies with over 300 workers are obliged to contract employees living with some kind of disability or to pay a fine, but recruitment is still very much below the desired levels. The reform of education programmes to facilitate access and increase educational opportunities is in progress. A professional training programme for disabled people has been introduced. Minors in prison have vocational training programmes.

South Korea signed the 1951 UN Convention on Refugee Status and its Protocol of 1967. The refugee population is increasing the same as the number of asylum seekers. The majority come from North Korea. North Korean refugee children have the right to free education.

The country is ethnically homogeneous, with no large ethnic minority populations. Inhabitants must show their family genealogy to obtain citizenship, since this is based on kinship and not on the place of birth.

Reports indicate that there are police taps in the university campuses. In accordance with the National Security Law, the government may limit the expression of ideas which the authorities consider to be communist or pro-North Korean.

The law provides equal access to education for men and women. The political parties are recruiting more women for leading posts, and women make up 43% of the workforce. Few women have reached executive posts or earn more than the average salary. According to reports, a female worker earns on average 63% of what a man earns in a similar job. According to data from the OECD the gender salary gap in South Korea is among the highest in the world. Companies discriminating against women in recruitment and employee promotions are fined. The cultural emphasis which sees men as breadwinners of the family and women as housewives, the weak application of employment equality laws, long hours of exhausting work and the limited social services for childcare combine to create a working environment which is openly hostile to women.

Sexual harassment is prohibited, but harassment and violence against women are problems confirmed in reports.

The police are obliged to respond immediately to reports of domestic violence. Women may be officially recognised as heads of the family, which gives them certain guarantees in the case of divorce, although the stigma of divorce is still very powerful.

It is prohibited to employ minors under 15 without a special work certificate, of which only a few are issued because education is compulsory up to that age. Children of 16 and 17 years old must obtain written permission from their parents or tutors to be able to work.

South Korea has a very educated workforce: 42% of men and 37% of women have completed a university education. The work culture in South Korea is characterised by long working hours. In 2008, South Korea occupied first place among OECD member countries in its annual list of longest working hours, with an average of 2,256 hours per year.

Workers have the right to join and form trade unions, except civil servants. The majority of government employees may have recourse to collective bargaining units, but they do not have the right to strike. The International Trade Union Confederation has protested about the lack of recognition for union power signalling that this allows companies to form trade unions controlled by management. 11% of the working population is unionised. There are 2 labour federations in the country: the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions both have international affiliation. Civil servants have no trade union rights, but teachers are unionised. Collective bargaining is practised and strikes take place. Strikes are prohibited for government workers and for those who work in the area of defence. Forced or compulsory labour is illegal.

The arrival to power of a conservative Government has precipitated the hardening of relationships with the trade union movement. Violations of trade union rights seem to have increased in 2010, while the financial crisis has intensified conflicts in industrial relations, given that companies try to acquire policies that facilitate mass dismissals and unilateral cuts in salaries and working conditions.

In accordance with the Assembly and Demonstration Law, all meetings held within a radius of one hundred metres of the foreign diplomatic missions are prohibited. Consequently, many important companies, like Samsung, have been inviting embassies to rent offices in their buildings, a tactic which effectively prevents workers from being able to demonstrate outside the company's headquarters.

The level of job insecurity in South Korea is very high (over 50%), but according to trade unions, recent privatisation initiatives and merging public services are raising this figure even higher, as well as the dismissals of civil servants and job instability. It is also making labour conditions worse with the additional objective of weakening the trade union movement.
In October 2010, the Constitutional Court analysed whether limitations to employment changes in the work permit system for migrants were constitutional or not. Meanwhile, thousands of migrant workers were still deported. In November, Trinh Cong Quan, an undocumented worker from Vietnam, died after trying to escape from immigration officials by jumping from the factory building where he was working. The immigration authorities had stormed the factory without requesting permission from the employer, as part of a repressive operation against undocumented workers. Trinh Cong Quan had a wife and child in South Korea.

On 17 and 29 March 2011, South Korea's immigration service refused to give Michel Catuira, President of the Seoul Migrants Trade Union (MTU), a visa. Michel Catuira, a 38-year-old Filipino, had faced harassment from the authorities since July 2010. The South Korean Government refuses to recognise the MTU's legitimacy and has organised a series of offensives against its leaders since it was founded in 2005.

183 members of the KTU, the teacher's trade union, were charged in May 2010 for maintaining relations with the Democratic Labour Party (DLP); it was maintained that they had made private donations to the opposition party. The Minister of Education, Science and Technology announced the dismissal of the 183 teachers for breaching the political neutrality clause that teachers and officials must observe. Article 65 of South Korea's Civil Service Law prohibits public school teachers making contributions to political parties. In spite of the fact that the formal legal process had not begun, the local education authorities throughout the country began disciplinary procedures. Consequently, the President of the KTU, Jeong Jin-hoo, went on hunger strike for 18 days to highlight the arbitrariness with which KTU members were attacked.

In the education sector, KTU teachers report a sharp increase in the cost of private education, the strengthening of competitive education and the destruction of public education. The trade union, a member of EI, has demanded guarantees for students' human rights, democratic management of schools and that an end is put to education policies aimed at promoting competitive education.

State of World Population 2010. "From conflicts and crises towards renewal: generations of change" UNFPA, November 2010, www.unfpa.org (Spanish)

Women in National Parliaments, World Classification April 2011, Inter-Parlamentary Union, www.ipu.org

Amnesty International, 15th May 2011, www.amnesty.org

"HIV Travel Bans: Small steps, Big gaps", Human Rights Watch, January 2011, www.hrw.org

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-OECD, March 2010,
www.oecd.org

Annual Report on violations of trade union rights 2010, International Union Confederation, June 2010, www.ituc-csi.org

Amnesty International, Amnesty International Annual Report 2011 - South Korea, 13 May 2011, www.unhcr.org

"South Korea: Trade unionist risks forced deportation", Amnesty International, 4 April 2011, www.amnesty.org