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The National Human Rights Commission said Wednesday that banning a child below 10 years old from a department store’s VIP resting area discriminates against children.
The state human rights watchdog ruled that restricting children under 10 in such spaces based on age is not legitimate, citing Article 11 of the Constitution, which guarantees “equality for all citizens.”
In March last year, a mother of a 100-day-old child filed a petition to the NHRC after she was denied entry into the VIP lounge because she had her daughter in a stroller.
Following the incident, the NHRC said it had recommended the department store and its CEO, both not named, not to bar the entry of younger children to such waiting rooms.
“Freedom to conduct business operations should be guaranteed, since a commercial facility’s main objective is to maximize profit. But there should be a reasonable and justifiable ground when trying to exclude certain groups of people from using specific services or spaces (at the department store),” the watchdog said via a press release.
On a separate note, the NHRC plans to send recommendations to major department stores in Korea to lift the ban on young children entering resting spaces.
