Racism in South Korea

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Racism in South Korea has been recognized as a widespread social problem, particularly in the South Korean media.

As a result of an increase in immigration to South Korea since the 2000s, more open expressions of racism and criticism of such expressions increased. Newspapers have often reported and criticized discrimination against immigrants, e.g. B. in the form of falling below the minimum wage , withholding wages, unsafe working conditions, physical abuse or general denigration.

In a World Values ​​Survey 2010–2014, 44.2% of South Koreans stated that they do not want a foreigner as a neighbor. Racist attitudes are more often expressed towards immigrants from other Asian countries and Africa; but less so than white European and American immigrants who may occasionally receive something like "overly kind treatment". Similar discrimination has also been reported in relation to multiracial children, Sino-Korean and North Korean immigrants.

Recent laws - notably the Law on the Employment of Foreign Workers (2004) and the Law on the Promotion of Multicultural Families (2008) - have improved the situation of immigrants and more effectively protected their human and labor rights. In 2011, the South Korean military abandoned a rule preventing multiracial men from signing up and changed the oath of enlistment to not relate Korean ethnicity to citizenship. Similar concepts have also been deleted from the curriculum . This has been attributed in part to international pressure - particularly concerns from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination , which has stated that persistent ethnically-centered thinking in South Korea "is an obstacle to achieving equality and respect for foreigners and people of different races and cultures ”. As of November 2018, there was still no anti-discrimination law in South Korea that was recommended by the UN Human Rights Committee in 2015. The law had stalled because of “lack of public approval”. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea recommended the implementation of an anti-discrimination law and a legal and institutional framework. According to Dr. Katharine HS Moon, Chair of Korean Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, would often go unpunished at times. At the same time, Sven Schwersensky from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in South Korea asked to be careful about describing South Korean society as intolerant. There are different factors that play a role in the situation. He himself never felt intolerant and perceived the South Korean society as hospitable and open-minded.

In July 2018, a mass protest against Yemeni refugees who came to Jeju Island caused outrage in South Korea. There are prejudices against Muslim refugees in particular . Among other things, the actor Jung Woo-sung tried to draw attention to the situation of the refugees.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Park, Keumjae (2013), "Foreigners or multicultural citizens? Press media's construction of immigrants in South Korea", Ethnic and Racial Studies , 37 (9): 1565–1586, doi: 10.1080 / 01419870.2012.758860
  2. ↑ a b c Kim, Yugyun; Son, Inso; Like, Dainn; et al. (July 19, 2016), "Don't ask for fair treatment? A gender analysis of ethnic discrimination, response to discrimination, and self-rated health among marriage migrants in South Korea" , International Journal for Equity in Health , 15 (1 ), doi: 10.1186 / s12939-016-0396-7 , pmid: 27430432 , quote: “The recent increased influx of immigrants in Korea has ignited racism among Korean natives, which is heightened by economic and cultural nationalism [6]. For example, more than 40% of Koreans answered that they would not want a foreigner as their neighborhood, based on the recent World Values ​​Survey (2010-2014) [9]. "
  3. ↑ World Values ​​Survey (2010-2014) . In: World Values ​​Survey Association . April 18, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Emma Campbell: The end of ethnic nationalism? Changing conceptions of national identity and belonging among young South Koreans . In: Nations & Nationalism . tape 21 , no. 3 , p. 483-502 , doi : 10.1111 / nana.12120 .
  5. ↑ a b Claire Lee: Human rights report says Korea has 'serious racism problem'. In: The Korea Herald . November 8, 2018, accessed November 15, 2018 .
  6. ^ A b c Shay Meinecke: South Korea's struggle with cultural diversity. In: Deutsche Welle . February 24, 2016, accessed October 29, 2018 .
  7. ^ Se-Woong Koo: Opinion: South Korea's Enduring Racism. In: The New York Times . July 1, 2018, accessed October 30, 2018 .
  8. ↑ [JEJU FORUM] Actor brings attention to refugees' plight. In: Korea JoongAng Daily . June 25, 2018, accessed November 15, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Dong Sun-hwa: Actor Jung Woo-sung reaffirms support for refugees. In: The Korea Times . October 22, 2018, accessed November 15, 2018 .