By Hyeyoon Jeon
My last article was about the
justification for teenage suffrage—why teenagers should have the right to vote
according to the Constitution. In this article, I’m going to deal with the
necessity of teenage suffrage: why teenage suffrage is necessary for the welfare
of teenagers and eventually, the general public.
Teenagers have always been isolated
from politics, and politics have been isolated from teenagers. Most people
believe that the subject of politics is inappropriate for teenagers. They think
that teenagers should be innocent, so they try to keep teenagers from the dirty
subject of politics.
However, this
isolation is a very dangerous approach. The distance between teenagers and
politics makes politicians apathetic to solving problems associated with
teenagers, such as suicide, bullying, a competition-oriented education system,
and the lack of adequate protection for non-student teenagers. Because
teenagers don’t vote, politicians aren’t interested in solving such problems. Most
of the policies that seem related to teenagers are mostly targeted toward
parents, who comprise the majority of the voting base. Take, for example, how
politicians have handled the topic of free lunches. The policy, strictly
speaking, benefits most parents rather than students. In most cases, parents
pay for their children’s lunch. There are only a few policies that are directly
concerned with teenagers.
Even in the
upcoming presidential election, there seems to be no candidate who is
interested in solving such problems. The candidates make countless promises for
all kinds of people—the working class, the poor, the disabled, and so on. But
teenagers are excluded. Asunaro, a teenager human rights organization, asked
the three leading presidential candidates—Park Geunhye, Moon Jaein, Ahn Chulsoo—about
their policies for teenagers. Park Geunhye answered that she hadn’t prepared any
policies yet; Moon Jaein replied that he would create a “happy” education system
that prioritizes students; Ahn Chulsoo pretty much repeated what he wrote in
his book, showing concerns towards the current competition-based education
system. One candidate did not even have any policy, and two other candidates
pretty much stuck to their basic policies, showing that none of them had thought
deeply about policies concerning teenagers. Such a phenomenon is not new:
politicians have always neglected teenagers. Teenagers have to have influence
on the ballot to get politicians to listen. Because teenagers don’t have the
right to vote, problems related to schools and teenagers are never properly
dealt with, and because of this apathy, the problems grow bigger and become
harder to solve. After women’s suffrage was granted, politicians began to deal
with gender equality. Shouldn’t teenagers have the same influence on policies
that affect them?
Another concern has to do with the public’s
awareness on politics. Nowadays, after every election, the press reports how
voting rates have decreased, especially among those in their twenties. Though
this decrease seems counterintuitive, considering how sudden people are granted
with suffrage, what could we honestly expect? In many cases, soon after newly
qualified voters graduate from rigorous high schools where they are forced to
think about nothing but studying, they are suddenly asked to vote for the politicians
who are going to lead them. The process is rather too sudden. They were too
busy to think about politics during high school years; all of a sudden, they
become adults who must vote and have interest in politics and the world around
them. At last, they simply choose not to vote, not because they are satisfied
with the status quo, but because they are apathetic to politics, like they have
been trained to be when they were teenagers. Thus, starting to vote from a younger
age may actually encourage people to adapt to the process easier. There might be
a different awareness towards politics. Teenagers are usually in environments
where discussions of sensitive topics are tolerated, at least better than among
adults. When teenagers start to vote, they would discuss politics among their
peers much more actively than they do now. Since teenagers are free in their speech,
they are likely to exchange diverse opinions from diverse peers, and such
discussions would help to create individual opinions. If the government is
truly concerned with the public’s apathy towards politics, there is no reason
not to accept suffrage to teenagers. Having suffrage from a younger age can change
people’s attitudes towards politics.
All in all, teenage suffrage is
necessary not only for teenagers but also for the general awareness and benefit
of all Koreans. Now, the government ignores the voices of teenagers, but when
teenagers have suffrage, inevitable changes are going to be come. The adults
now neglect politics for being corrupt, but when they start voting from a
younger age, they are likely to be less ignorant on the topic.
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