User:JustinePorto/Public toilets in South Korea

Public toilets in South Korea are relatively rare, but often have diaper changing facilities. A lot of work was done to improve public toilets and destigmatize their usage ahead of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Public toilets
A 2021 study found there were three public toilets per 100,000 people. Seoul had 2.11 public toilets per square kilometer of open space in 2018. There were 731 public toilets at public parks in 2016, with 3,914 women's stalls.

Public toilets are found at subway stations in Seoul. Many public toilets have diaper changing facilities. The most common place for this type of toilet facility is in department store toilets. Squat toilets are very common in the country, with a mix of sit and squat toilets found elsewhere. Some sit flush public toilets do not provide toilet paper as they have built in push button bidet options instead. Some public toilets offer toilet paper, but located outside the stall. Most public toilets in Seoul are clean.

Many public toilets have signs saying not to flush toilet paper. Instead, they provide open air bins for toilet paper disposal. This continued to occur despite the spread of MERS and SARS being a result of poor hygiene practices. The signs saying no toilet paper are often less about the toilet paper itself than other objects that might be thrown in like diapers, fast food containers and menstrual products that can cause toilet clogs.

80% of public toilets in Seoul are hooked up to septic tanks, a practice that was imported from Japan in the 1920s.

Some women's public toilets have emergency bells that are connected wirelessly to local police stations and patrol cars. The purpose is to make women feel safe when using the toilets after a number of sexual assaults and crimes took place in women's public toilets.

History
A Korean sanitary inspector went to the University of Oklahoma in 1957 for training in sanitary inspection in line with United States standards. He was the first Korean to take part in the program. Topics related to this program included public wells, public toilets, night soil tanks and public baths.

Starting in the 1990s, a movement began to try to end the practice of having open air toilet paper disposal bins. The movement started because bins were rarely empty and the practice was viewed as unhygienic.

Beautiful Toilet Campaign was created by the government as part of preparations for hosting the 2002 FIFA World Cup, with the goal of supporting the tourism sector. It was supported by the Korea Toilet Association. One of the goals was to destigmatize using public toilets.

Central Suwon has one of the greatest density of public toilets in the world. This came about because of efforts by Sim Jae-deok who spearheaded the efforts ahead of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, who commissioned dozens of public toilets.

A Ministry of the Interior run facilities, toilet paper disposal bins began to be removed in 2013, including those on Seoul's subway system.

A man killed a woman in the public toilet facilities at Gangnam Station on 17 May 2016. He had dubbed himself a woman hater prior to the attack, which sparked nationwide protests.

In September 2018, the city government of Seoul pledged to carry out daily checks of all public toilets to combat the problem of spy cams being placed in them for the purposes of distributing spy cam porn. In 2017, there were 6,000 reports of this problem, 80% by women, in the city, and women had started begun mobilizing in the streets in 2018 to demand action on the issue. Of the 6,000 complaints, 5,400 arrests were made related to that. Of those arrests, less than 2% led to the offenders being held in prison.