Social service personnel

The Social Service Personnel[1] (Korean: 사회복무요원, 社會服務要員) is a system of compulsory employment in South Korea.

The place is Social Service Training Center in Boeun-gun, Chungcheongbuk-do(충청북도 보은군), which also lasts five days, over 44 hours.

The salary paid to Social Service Personnel in accounting is basically the same as for those on active duty.

In April 2017, former Social Service Personnel "Lee da-hoon (21 years old) said, "The current Social Service Personnel's remuneration system is significantly below the minimum cost of living, violating the right to equality, property rights, and human life."

After receiving more than 7 warnings, Social Service Personnel can be charged with violating the conscription law, and sentenced to imprisonment.

[9][10] 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.

[12] 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.

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.

[16][17] On May 30, 2019, former Social Service Personnel "Lee da Hoon[18] (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.

Social Service Personnel are not trained to perform such tasks, with unknown effects on results.

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.

[20] A Social Service Personnel serving in Seocho 1-dong Community Center in 2016 was found dead on June 22, 2016.

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.

[22] The relevant official posted a letter stating that a Social Service Personnel was unable to perform this task.

[23] 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,[clarification needed] and foreign investment reductions.