HIV test exempted for entertainment visas, but not English teachers?

While it remains to be seen whether anything will really become of this (there’s been no official notice and there’s nothing in the Korea press about it, and it is a KT article after all), if the government does decide to move forward on the issue it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

For the E-9 laborers’ it’s a long time coming. The human rights abuses have been well documented by Amnesty Int’l , and complaints have been filed with the NHRCK where, unfortunately, they’ve sat unanswered since last year.

As for the legitimacy of AIDS tests for E-6 visa holders, it’s more complex since the E-6 visa category is a real mess. AIDS tests for sex workers obviously make sense and people working as sex workers want such tests to be made available, but it should be recalled that the E-6 is not a de jure “sex worker visa”. One of the early complainants (2003) on AIDS tests under the E-6 was the Japanese actress Yuko Fueki aka “유민,” who is certainly not a sex-worker.

The E-6 is supposed to be an “Arts & Entertainment” visa, but it’s really become a catchall visa that includes much more:

Creative artists such as composers, painters, sculptors, handicraftsmen, writers or photographers . . . [t]hose that direct activities related to music, fine arts, literature, musical performance, dance, movie . . . manager of professional sports team or the conductor of an orchestra . . . [those who] profit through performing arts such as entertainment, music, play, sports, advertisement, fashion model, and others of the like. [KIS]

That said, the E-6 has become a de facto sex worker visa category for some, especially in for Filipinas servicing US GIs in the kichich’on clubs. There were nearly 3,000 E-6/E-62 visa issued to women from the Philippines in 2008 (out of a total of about 4,500 in 2008). But how of these many women are actually working as sex workers and of those how many were told that they were intended to work as sex workers is another question. Also, there are relatively few Russian & Ukraine women on E-6 visas (only about 160 in 2008). Word from the KIS is that the E-6 will be phased out or re-worked, but who knows. One hopes that if Korea and the US military want to invite foreign sex workers to Korea they will be straightforward about it with the women and with the construction of an appropriate visa category.

As for professional athletes, there is discussion (especially in different types of contact sports) about the risk of AIDS transmission, experts agree that while the risk is low (e.g. a study on the NFL found it to be less than one infection in 85.6 million game contacts), it’s not zero. But the consensus is for risk prevention, voluntary testing and treatment rather than mandatory tests. The Nevada Boxing Commission, however, did have mandatory tests in place for some time; I’m uncertain whether the rule is still in place, it may be.

As for AIDS testing foreign teachers on E-2 visas, I don’t think there’s any cause for bewilderment as far as the MOE’s position on the issue — they’ve been extremely forthcoming:

The continuation [of AIDS tests for E-2s] does not mean the government regards foreign teachers to be HIV positive or have the potential of transmission ― it is just intended to assure the parents. [KT]

There’s no need to look for a rational explanation for the testing since that’s not the argument being advanced. As former Nat. Assm. Rep Sohn Hak-kyu taught us back in 2008:

Public perception is no less important than rational judgment.

The public is afraid (the Prime Minister’s office released a survey citing 80% of the Korean public in favor of the E-2 AIDS tests) and the MOE has, albeit misguidedly, decided that mandatorily AIDS testing foreign teachers will reassure them. Whether the public is afraid that children will get the disease through a “How are you? I’m fine, thank you” lesson or whether the concern stems from fears of child molestation or through consensual unprotected sex with Korean females is a mixed and muddled matter – but the fear is clear enough.

While AIDS awareness and education is seriously lacking in Korea, there’s nothing particularly Korean about the fear of AIDS or the desire to exclude teachers with HIV/AIDS from the classroom.

The US was going through the same panic back in the 80s. In 1987 an Orange County California school wanted to exclude a teacher with AIDS from the classroom and one of the school’s main arguments was that while the experts might know the threat to students was negligible, the community did not. How much fear of AIDS was there in America in 1987? An Oprah show from ’87 on the issue is a shocking reminder.

In the court case that resulted from the Orange County school’s decision to fire the teacher the court acknowledge that while the fears were very real it wasn’t going to offer up the rights of the teacher in symbolic appeasement to public fears or parental pressure:

The Court recognizes the concern and fear which is flowing from this small community, particularly from the parents of school age children in DeSoto County. However, the Court may not be guided by such community fear [or] parental pressure . . . These obstacles, real as they may be, cannot be allowed to vitiate [individuals’] rights …’

Whether the Korean Constitutional Court will take a similar approach to mandatory AIDS tests for E-2s (where the plaintiff representing the class does not even have HIV/AIDS) is an open question.