Suwon Human Rights Center Conducts Ex Officio Investigation into Sexual Harassment and Assault at City Subsidiaries

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Seo Dong-young] The Suwon Human Rights Center announced on the 15th that it will conduct an ex officio investigation into the status of sexual harassment and assault at all subsidiary organizations of Suwon City and their response systems.

The ex officio investigation targets 11 organizations including city-invested and funded institutions and city-affiliated public organizations under Suwon City.

The Human Rights Center will investigate the overall response systems, including the status of past sexual harassment and assault incidents and their handling, and the implementation of sexual harassment and assault prevention measures (prevention education, prevention guidelines, grievance consultation channels, etc.).

For organizations where human rights violations are found or sexual harassment and assault response systems are inadequate, the center plans to issue "recommendations for institutional improvement" to establish sexual harassment and assault prevention systems. Additionally, it plans to conduct "customized consulting for each organization" so that subsidiary organizations can establish prevention systems tailored to their characteristics.

The customized consulting will consist of ▲establishment of in-house sexual harassment prevention guidelines ▲consultation for building and operating grievance processing systems ▲support for sexual harassment and assault prevention education ▲assistance with case handling.

Through this ex officio investigation, the Human Rights Center plans to prevent and eliminate sexual harassment and assault at subsidiary organizations and restructure the victim human rights protection system. It also plans to provide systematic support continuously so that a human rights-friendly organizational culture can be established at subsidiary organizations.

An official from the Suwon Human Rights Center stated, "There have been recent media reports that procedures for handling sexual harassment cases at city subsidiary organizations were inadequate," and added, "We will investigate whether sexual harassment and assault that occurred not only at the relevant organization but at all subsidiary organizations were properly handled, and conduct a comprehensive inspection of victim grievance handling systems."

The city opened a "Human Rights Center" in May 2015 and established a "Human Rights Officer" position in January 2019, the first among basic local governments, as part of efforts to protect the human rights of socially vulnerable groups and citizens.