"I looked around once and half of them are tattooed."
Tattooist Kim Do-yoon, who appeared as a reference at the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee's National Audit Office on the afternoon of the 23rd, said, "But not a single person will receive it legally." He pointed out the situation in which tattooing is illegal unless you are a medical professional. Kim Do-yoon is the president of Tattoo Union branch of the Chemical Fiber Food Union of the National Federation of Labor Unions.
Kim, who said he is also working on famous Hollywood actors, said, "He is famous and makes a lot of money, but after being threatened and investigated by customers for illegal activities, I formed a labor union after seeing my colleagues who organized their lives."
"When you go abroad and say tattooing is a medical practice in Korea, you usually ask, 'Are you from North Korea?'" Kim said. "The Korean judiciary has defined tattooing as a medical practice by bringing Japanese precedents that prevent anyone from getting tattoos when public opinion was not good."
Two years ago, the Constitutional Court decided that the medical law, which only allows tattoos to be made to medical personnel, was constitutional. Tattooists are often threatened to report tattoos without paying.
Kim said, "There are 13 million domestic tattoo consumers, including eyebrows and drawings on the body," adding, "The Ministry of Employment and Labor cited tattooists as one of the promising jobs in the future and assigned job codes. The National Tax Service also made a number for business registration so that they could pay taxes," he said.
"The administration treats tattooists as legal, but the judiciary says it is illegal," he said, adding, "If there is no legislation, 13 million consumers will receive tattoos anxiously next year without the law."
Minister of Health and Welfare Cho Kyu-hong agreed in principle to institutionalize tattooing, but answered "yes" briefly when asked if it means that it is not easy to adjust the interests of related organizations.
In response, Kim said, "Please ignore all the stories of related organizations," and added, "As we have agreed on everything except for the parts that we can never agree on, we are ready to abide by the rules (law) that they make."
Reporter Lee Yu Na from Digital News Team.
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