From October 30 to November 3, the Korea University Student Association (KUSA) and various school organizations are hosting the Human Rights Week—Soom. The preparation team stated that they chose Soom, which means breath in Korean, as this year’s theme to illustrate the importance of human rights, something very essential for life.

 

On the first day of the Human Rights Week, Soom held a reading session at the Science Library with Professor Kim Seung Sup (College of Health Science) on his new book For Pain to Become a Road. During the session, he discussed how prejudices and unstable employment may harm the mental and physical health of the minorities.

 

Booths from many school organizations, including KU Human Rights Center and KU Women Students Association, will be featured on the second and the third day at the People’s Square. A discussion session with some human rights activists—Ub—will also be convened on the second day, at the Student Union Building. Students will be given the opportunity to meet and converse with some prominent human rights activists, including Yoon Ji Young, a lawyer at the Human Rights Law Foundation Gong Gam and Lee Sang Soo, an activist fighting for the rights of Samsung workers in the semi-conductor industry.

 

The third day of Soom will be focused on a movie, Free CeCe!, provided by the 22nd Seoul Human Rights Film Festival. The movie, which won in the 2016 Blackstar Film Festival, portrays the life and hardships of a black transgender. The movie will be screened at the Student Union Building.

 

To reflect on the previous human rights projects conducted on campus, a program called To Draw Human Rights, will be hosted on the fourth day. Any student, who is willing to evaluate and speak about the past and the future of the human rights projects, can participate in the program.

 

On the last day of Soom, a talk concert entitled Did You Really Like It?, will be held, with the writer of the book Selfish Sex: Their Sex is Wrong, Eun Ha Sun. The event will be focused on the sexual empowerment of women as well as the society’s prejudice against the desires of women, ultimately seeking “the right of women to talk about sex freely in public.” The concert will be held at the Centennial Memorial SAMSUNG hall at 7 P.M.