Gwangju City News

From the Gwangju Metropolitan City website (http://gwangju.go.kr)

The medical community, City Hall, and Gwangju City Council joined hands on the city’s key policy of “making Gwangju a better place to raise children.” Gwangju City Council President Park Yoohwan, Vice Chairman Oh Young-hyeon, Mizpia Hospital Obstetrics and Gynecology Director Lee Hyun-soo, and IFirst Children’s Hospital Pediatric Department Director Choi Chang-sun, on behalf of the departments of obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics in the city, signed a business agreement for mutual cooperation to make Gwangju a finer place to give birth to and raise children.

The key points of the agreement are (a) promoting understanding and cooperation for “making Gwangju a better place to have children,” (b) creating a pregnancy and childbirth-friendly environment, (c) promoting support policies for each life stage, and (d) sharing the integrated information platform Gwangju iKium.” To this end, Gwangju and the affiliated institutions are promoting the “making Gwangju a better place to raise children” policy by providing a comprehensive guide to support policies by providing life-cycle support policy guides to visitors to medical institutions and promoting information such as policy-promotion video screening.

The agreement with local medical institutions directly related to pregnancy and childbirth is expected to further boost Gwangju’s policy of “making Gwangju a better place to raise children.”

In order to strengthen the responsibility and public nature of care services, Gwangju City has announced a series of policies to create an improved environment in which to raise children “since July 2019 and has been pushing for six life-cycle support policies including meeting, marriage, pregnancy, birth, childcare, and work-life balance.”

Meanwhile, Gwangju’s total fertility rate, which had continued to decline until last year, rebounded from January to March this year, up 6.8 percent from the same quarter of the previous year, as the city’s policy to overcome low birth rates has led to tangible results. This is the first increase in six years, and Gwangju is the only place where the total fertility rate increased in the first quarter of this year among the 17 major cities and provinces.

Park Yoo-hwan, Chairman of the City Council, stated, “The decrease in the number of births is due to concerns about childcare and assistance. We ordered the expansion of childcare, care facilities, and related services, and if the community creates an unbiased culture of caring for pregnant women, the birth rate will increase.”

Mayor Lee Yong Sup said, “Now we have to take the lead in solving the problem of low birthrates, and we all need to gather strength and wisdom to raise our children healthily and guarantee a sustainable future. We hope today’s agreement will be a driving force to build Gwangju into the center of Korea and lead the world.”

▲ Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong Sup (second from left) with local medical institution representatives after signing an ageement promoting Gwangju’s policy to make Gwangju a better place to raise children.

Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong Sup (center) meets 20 members of civic groups representing the women of Gwangju. ▶

Mayor Lee Yong Sup visited facilities for female civic and rights groups, and listened to their problems on the second day of the “Special Week for Women and Childcare in Overcoming COVID-19.” Mayor Lee held a meeting with about 20 members of groups representing the local women’s community, including the Gwangju Women’s Association, the Gwangju-Jeonnam Women’s Association, and the Gwangju YWCA at the Gwangju Women’s Organization Center. At the meeting, Mayor Lee stressed the importance of eliminating discrimination and violence that still exist in society and the need to create a world where people come first, regardless of gender. He invited the female community to take the lead and by taking up the role of local leaders who care for their neighbors.

In order to promote the rights and interests of local women, the women’s civic groups suggested providing additional support to the female community with long-awaited projects for women, expanding support for events such as commemorating International Women’s Day on March 8 of each year, and offering training support for the empowerment of local female activists. In addition, civic groups have decided to actively take part in the city’s new project, “Making Gwangju a better place to raise children.”

Following the meeting with women’s civic groups, Mayor Lee had a meeting with representatives of more than 20 facilities related to victim support, including domestic violence, sexual violence, and sex trafficking. Representatives of women’s rights facilities requested improvement in treatment for facility workers, priority in vaccination, support for the sale of goods produced by women who are victims of prostitution, and the easing of requirements for subsidies.

Mayor Lee expressed his gratitude for the hard work of those involved in helping women suffering from violence, healing their pain, and helping them become independent, while vowing to do his best in making Gwangju a safe and happy place for women.

Gwangju City is conducting a project to install partitions in taxis to protect taxi drivers from assault by drunken passengers and prevent infection from COVID-19. In March, partitions were installed on a trial basis in 113 taxis for female and elderly drivers, and an additional 100 are planned to be installed at the request of passengers and drivers. The installation cost will be shared by the city (80 percent) and the taxi driver (20 percent.)

A taxi driver who had a partition installed as part of the pilot project said, “I gained psychological relief from the threat of drunken passengers when driving at night. Also, since the spread of COVID-19, more passengers ride in the back seat than in the seat next to the driver, and the transmission of droplets when talking is partially blocked, so passengers also prefer it.”

Son Doo-young, head of the city’s public transportation division, said, “In the case of city buses, the installation of barriers to protect drivers is mandatory according to the relevant laws, but there are few cases of similar protection for taxis, so we have implemented a partition pilot project for women and elderly drivers. If the collected opinions and responses are good, we plan to continue to expand the installation to strengthen the safety of transportation personnel.”