Foreigners to Get Unified Identification
By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
A presidential panel advised the Ministry of Justice, Wednesday, to mend the registration system for foreign residents to help them easily prove their family relationships.
The move comes as the number of multicultural families here is increasing. ``More than 160,000 foreigners emigrated here for marriage. In a bid to help improve the rights of multicultural families and their settlement, we will continue to improve cooperation with government offices,'' said an official of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC).
If the recommendation is accepted, foreign spouses are expected to easily prove their marriage and family relations, as family and foreign registration will have the same information.
Inoue Tomoko, who married a South Korean man a few years ago, is confused as she has to have three different names on identification-related documents here.
She is named ``Jeongsangbungja'' via the phonetic spelling of her name in Chinese characters in Korean, according to an official certificate of marriage, while her Japanese name is written in Korean on a document proving her family relations.
Her driver's license and foreign registration card are in English.
``About 10 years ago, Japanese people had to indicate the phonetic spelling of their names in Korean, so the marriage certificate couldn't prove the relationship between me and my husband,'' she complained. ``My name is Inoue Tomoko and there is no such person as Jeongsangbungja.''
She is not the only one who reported difficulty in daily life due to different rules for identification.
To avoid confusion, the commission suggested that a foreign registration number, English names in passports and Korean names all be written on identification documents.
Currently, a family relations roster under the control of the Supreme Court requires foreigners who marry a South Korean national to write their names in Korean as they are pronounced.
On the other hand, foreign registration governed by the Ministry of Justice requires them to write their names, in English, and their foreign registration numbers.
What the two documents commonly ask for is the date of birth only, the commission noted.
The commission learned foreign spouses have had difficulties opening bank accounts or going to hospitals since personal information could prove neither marriage nor family relations.
A foreign woman could not even register her baby's birth when her Korean husband was on a business trip abroad because identification documents failed to show she was his wife, an ACRC official said.
The organization, launched last February in line with President Lee Myung-bak's inauguration, has helped improve systematic and legal problems foreigners encounter here.
Its officials visit areas where foreign workers are densely populated to provide legal services on a regular basis.
The commission has also offered civil services in English, Japanese and Chinese through an online petition center at www.epeople.go.kr.