NHRCK Chairperson spoke on “International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination”
The United Nations proclaimed the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 1966, remembering victims of racial discrimination. On the 21st of March, 1960, police killed sixty-nine protesters against the apartheid policy in Sharpeville, South Africa.
History tells us that the elimination of racial discrimination prompts social development as well as development of international society, for example, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in US, the abolition of the White Australia Policy of the 1970s, and the End of apartheid policy of the 1990s in South Africa.
The Republic of Korea has been transforming into a multicultural society through the influx of migrants since the 1980s. Even though the number of migrants exceeds 1.2 million, Korean society is not ready for a multicultural society. In 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination expressed its concerns that racial homogeneousity was still emphasized to restrict social understanding and tolerance in Korea.
The NHRCK expressed its commitment to the elimination of racial discrimination through reviewing the state report that was submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In addition, the NHRCK engaged in various activities to protect the human rights of migrants. This year, the Commission will formulate ‘the guideline for the human rights of migrants’ with an aim to influence the government’s policy on migrants.
March 21, 2011
Byung-Chul Hyun
Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea
