Recommendations to Allow Humanitarian Migrants to Work
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) recommends that the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health and Welfare (i) allow foreigners who are permitted to stay in Korea for humanitarian reasons to work, (ii) devise policy to make emergency or routine medical care and basic social welfare benefits available to such humanitarian migrants, and (iii) produce a solution to provide provisional support to them until the appropriate institutions are fully established.
In April 2000, a Congolese lady (aged 35) came to Korea with her four-year-old child to escape the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although her application for refugee status was denied, the South Korean government issued a visa in March 2005, recognizing the humanitarian circumstances involved. However, the visa was only for "Others (G-1)" sojourner status, which is provisional in nature. With that status, she cannot be employed, let alone receive such welfare benefits as livelihood support. She and the Ansan Migrant Shelter filed a complaint with the NHRCK in June 2007 to the effect that her right to survival was being violated.
The Commission has decided to issue policy recommendations to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, reckoning that all such migrants who stay in Korea for humanitarian reasons are susceptible to infringements of the right to survival and, therefore, that a sweeping range of institutional improvements should be made, including amendment of the Immigration Control Act.
The NHRCK noted that the state is obliged to make efforts to ensure the protection of the basic human rights of those who are officially allowed to stay in Korea for humanitarian reasons, as is mandated by the Constitution of the ROK and the International Human Rights Law. Notwithstanding, humanitarian migrants are not eligible for all forms of basic livelihood support such as support for employment, medical care, and other social welfare benefits. The Commission views this exclusion as out of conformity with the Constitution, which guarantees human dignity, the right to survival, and the right to maintain basic health. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) also officially recommended in June 2006 that the South Korean government should allow those who are protected in South Korea for humanitarian causes to get jobs.
The NHRCK judges that the Ministry of Justice should devise provisions to grant special sojourner status to humanitarian migrants that they may work. Furthermore, the Commission deems that basic livelihood support should be provided to humanitarian migrants who were compelled to depart from their homelands in extreme haste due to civil war or the like and have to stay on foreign soil without knowing when they will be able to return.
In June 2006, the NHRCK already issued a recommendation calling for policy improvement to protect the human rights of refugees in which the Commission advised the Ministry of Justice and other related parties to revise the applicable policies to improve the treatment of humanitarian migrants. As of January 2008, there were 53 migrants who were officially permitted to stay in Korea for humanitarian reasons.
