Women pay, men don’t: Human rights watchdog finds bathhouse towel fees discriminatory
The National Human Rights Commission found that charging women, but not men, for towels and soap violates the right to equality.
An AI-generated image of towels stacked at a public bathhouse
GEMINI
Korea's human rights watchdog found that some public bathhouses only charge extra fees for towels and soap to female customers, ruling the practice discriminatory and a violation of the right to equality.
The bathhouses said the practice began as more towels went missing from female locker rooms than from male locker rooms.
The issue came to light when the National Human Rights Commission of Korea received a complaint last September from a bathhouse patron in North Gyeongsang who reported that male customers were given towels and soap free of charge while female customers were charged 500 won ($0.35) per towel and 700 won ($0.49) for single-use toiletries like soap or shampoo.
The complainant who filed the petition argued that the policy constituted sex discrimination.
The bathhouse claimed that towels provided to customers in the women’s area frequently went missing and that the charges were an unavoidable measure to offset losses from having to replace supplies. It also said the Public Health Control Act does not require bathhouses to provide towels or soap free of charge and that other businesses follow similar practices.
An investigation by the commission’s discrimination remedy committee found that 22 of 27 bathhouses in the area charged only female customers a separate fee averaging 500 won per towel.
The commission concluded that the practice amounted to unjust discrimination.
“Even if the return rate for towels and soap in the women’s section is relatively low, that is merely a problem caused by some customers,” the commission said. “Requiring all female customers to bear additional costs is a measure based on stereotypes or generalizations about sex.”
The commission said bathhouses could consider other ways to prevent losses, such as requiring a refundable deposit for towel rentals or installing shared soap dispensers in the facility.
Uniformly imposing separate charges only on female customers thus amounted to sex-based discrimination without reasonable grounds and violated their right to equality, the commission said.
The commission recommended that the bathhouse owner end the practice and that the mayor overseeing the regional government strengthen administrative guidance to prevent similar cases.
BY HYEON YE-SEUL [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
