Schools Finally Remove Regulation That Makes All Girls Wear Plain White Underwear

Schools in South Korea have been instructed to ditch a decades-old policy that regulates the type of underwear female students are allowed to wear.

Seoul’s Metropolitan Office of Education said it would remove a mandate that meant pupils at girls’ middle and high schools in the capital had to wear plain, all-white underwear by the end of this year.

The regulations, which are enforced at roughly a quarter of all girls’ schools in the city, penalise students who wear coloured or lace underwear, with some guidelines also requiring students to wear blouses with sleeves that are ‘long enough that when raising one’s arms, the underwear cannot be seen’.

The decision comes after it was found that several schools had continued to enforce the dress code even after the Council removed a clause in the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Student Human Rights Ordinance that stated student dress could be ‘restricted by school rules’ in March.

Several students said that they had been subjected to underwear checks, with teachers in some schools reportedly inspecting the colour of female students’ bras.

A spokesperson for the Office of Education said that following the rule change, schools would be forced to remove the regulations, or face an ‘ex officio investigation’.

‘While most public schools follow our announcement, it often gets blocked by the school principal, the board members, or the steering committee in private schools as there is no legally binding force,’ they said.

‘Schools will now feel pressured by such an announcement and the news reports, which is what we are looking forward to.’