Only the blind can massage, Seoul court confirms

MASSAGE parlour jobs should remain the preserve of the blind as they generally have fewer career choices, South Korea’s constitutional court has ruled.

It yesterday upheld a controversial century-old law that restricts the awarding of massage licences and the ownership of massage parlours to the visually impaired.

The law calls for up to five years in prison or £35,000 in fines for violators and had been challenged by a massage shop owner who had been charged with offering services without a licence in 2015.

The legislation has been at the centre of an emotionally charged debate in recent years and the defendant argued that the rule infringes on the occupational freedom of non-blind people.

‘[It is] virtually the only occupation that visually impaired people can normally enjoy’

However, in rejecting his claim, the court ruled that “the massage business is virtually the only occupation that visually impaired people can normally enjoy”.

It added that the current system was “an unavoidable choice aimed at guaranteeing the visually impaired people’s right to survival.”

The verdict was the fourth of its kind in recent years after challenges to a law that was first introduced in Korea by Japanese colonialists in 1913. Establishing a monopoly in the industry was seen as a way to protect disabled people in the absence of state support.

But in the modern era, this stance has been controversial. As of 2008, only 7,100 blind people were working in about 1,000 legally registered massage parlours, while an estimated 150,000 to 700,000 practitioners were working illegally to meet growing demand.

An attempt two years earlier to overthrow the law had resulted in fierce protests for weeks and three deaths when two blind masseurs leapt from tall buildings on to subway tracks, and a sighted masseur jumped from a bridge, reported The New York Times.