Mandatory Annual Workplace Sexual-Harassment Prevention Education — South Korea

South Korea has required employers to provide annual workplace sexual-harassment prevention training since 1999, under Article 13 of the Act on Equal Employment and Support for Work-Family Reconciliation, enforced by the Ministry of Employment and Labor with an administrative fine of up to KRW 5,000,000 for non-compliance. Training must cover the relevant law, complaint-handling procedures, grievance counselling and prevention measures; a 2018 #MeToo-era amendment added criminal liability of up to three years' imprisonment for retaliation against complainants.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family's 2024 national survey (19,023 respondents across 2,685 organisations) found the reported workplace harassment experience rate fell from 8.1% (2018) to 4.8% (2021) to 4.3% (2024), with training coverage reaching about 98.1% of workplaces. But the same survey found a sharp divergence by sector: private-sector rates fell from 4.3% to 2.9% over 2021–2024, while public-sector rates rose from 7.4% to 11.1% — despite comparable training coverage. Online/digital harassment also rose, from 4.7% to 7.8%. Most victims (75.2%) said they took no action, most commonly because they judged it "not worth pursuing." A cited nursing-sector study found only 77% of trained nurses could correctly identify what constitutes sexual harassment, and commentary on universities (e.g. Seoul National University) describes some mandatory sessions as treated as a formality rather than substantively enforced. Secondary victimisation after reporting fell from 20.7% (2021) to 12.3% (2024).

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