South Korea: Women-only parking spaces to disappear in Seoul

Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, has removed women-only parking spaces as the authorities think they are "not necessary anymore", Korea Times reported on Wednesday. The apparent gender policy reversal move comes 14 years after it was introduced as a protection for women.

After a rise in reported violent crimes in basement car parks, the women-only parking spaces were allocated in 2009, which led to pink borders with signages, which read "Female Parking First" in two languages—Korean and English.

However, those signages are now being removed by the city officials, who also noted that those spaces will be converted to family parking spots.

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But the move is largely seen as an attempt to promote anti-feminist policies in the country. According to Korea Times, the work to implement the changes will begin next month.

The media report mentioned that the women's priority parking spaces used to be closer to the entrances of buildings for safety purposes. They were often located next to handicapped spots. Some of them were reported to be longer and wider as compared to other parking spaces.

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The report also mentioned that the policy was criticised by some for being discriminating against men. Some critics also argued that the parking policy is promoting the stereotype that women are bad drivers.

A BBC report mentioned that more than 30 spaces were required to allocate 10 per cent to women, which means just under 2,000 of the 16,640 public parking spaces were reserved for women.

According to government data in 2021, more than two-thirds of violent crimes committed in the car parks of Seoul were sexual crimes: rape, sexual assault and harassment.

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