South Korean smokers finally start to feel the heat
S KOREA: After decades of indifference, big businesses and the
government are turning up the heat on smokers in South Korea, a nation
with one of the developed world's highest male smoking rates.
Some firms are pressing workers to kick the habit or miss out on
promotion and the health ministry will toughen warnings on cigarette
packs.
Seoul council plans eventually to make one fifth of the city's total
area smoke-free. Even the military is getting in on the act: army
draftees undergoing basic training will get advice from a clinic on ways
to quit.
But successive national governments -- fearful of an electoral
backlash -- have held back from raising the tax on cigarettes.
Some 44.3 percent of South Korean men smoked in 2009, according to
the latest available data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD). This compares to an average among all member
nations of 26.5 percent for men.
The smoking rate among Korean women is low due to social taboos.
Samsung Electronics, the country's largest employer, is at the
forefront of efforts to cajole workers to quit smoking.
Executives of its Device Solutions (DS) department, which employs
35,000 people out of a total of 101,970 Samsung Electronics staff in
Korea, recently called on staffers to join a non-smoking programme.
A company spokesman said almost all DS employees had made non-smoking
pledges as part of what it called a "well-received" voluntary programme.
AFP
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