- The Seoul Board of Education is canceling a policy that requires female students to wear plain and all-white underwear.
- A quarter of Seoul’s girls’ schools have regulated the color and transparency of student underwear.
- The Seoul government hopes to abolish these regulations before the end of the year.
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The Seoul City Education Office is forcing girls’ schools in the city to abandon the requirement that female students wear only plain and all-white underwear.
Seoul City Council member Moon Jang-gil told the local news media that as of this week, 31 of Seoul’s 129 junior high and high school girls’ schools still have such regulations. Central Daily.
Moon said the school supervises the color, pattern and transparency of student underwear in accordance with the code of conduct of each institution. This includes rules that punish students who wear non-plain or white underwear, as well as penalties for wearing lace underwear.
Some of the guidelines listed in the school regulations include: “All types of underwear will be deducted except for white, unpatterned underwear”, “Lace underwear is prohibited” and “The shirt must be long enough that the underwear cannot be seen when the arm is raised. To,” reported Korea Joongang Daily.
The Seoul Department of Education requires schools to voluntarily or be forced to abolish these regulations before the end of this year. BBC Korea.
The policy change is caused by A survey conducted by Asunaro, A sort of Korean Youth Activist Organization, Earlier this year. The organization received more than 400 complaints about such underwear regulations from female students across the country.
Asunaro collected anonymous accounts of female students, some of whom said the school allowed male teachers to check their uniform tops and check that they were wearing the correct underwear, which was both insulting and disturbing. Hani News.
Other students said that they felt violated and uncomfortable during a large number of underwear checks, especially in schools, where female students’ clothes were carefully checked to see if they were wearing bras of different colors. Korean news media Yeoseong Shinmun Report.
A spokesperson for the Seoul Metropolitan Education Department told the Joongang Ilbo that it will be difficult for institutions to modify school rules until the authorities put pressure on schools to adapt to the policy changes.
“Although most public schools follow our announcement, because it is not legally binding, it is often blocked by the principal, board members or the steering committee of the private school,” the spokesperson told Central Daily.
But these girls’ schools now have no choice but to acquiesce to the government’s new directives.
According to a report from Yonhap NewsOf the remaining 31 schools with such underwear regulations, 6 schools announced on Tuesday that they will cancel the underwear policy after meeting with the Seoul Board of Education.
