Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
Compulsory education planned for future married immigrants
By Kwon Mee-yoo
The government plans to legalize mandatory education about Korea for foreigners who want to marry Koreans, especially women from other countries in Asia coming here through international matchmaking services.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is pushing a new program to make preliminary courses on Korea and its culture mandatory for married immigrants, a move to reduce human rights violation cases in Korea.
The move comes after a Vietnamese woman was murdered by her husband only eight days after arriving in Korea to marry him. The government has since cracked down on illegal or unlicensed matchmakers.
“They need to understand the reality of marriage in Korea in an objective way before coming here,” a ministry official said.
The number of foreigners marrying Koreans is constantly increasing. As of 2009, there were 125,087 and 87 percent of them were females married to Korean men. By nationality, ethnic Koreans from China and Chinese top the list, followed by Vietnamese and Filipinas.
The number of foreign-Korea marriages has jumped significantly after 2000. According to a survey on multicultural families conducted by the ministry, more than 80 percent of them occurred after the year 2000.
“We are discussing the program with the Ministry of Justice. We want to enforce the compulsory program as soon as possible and the exact date will be decided after more deliberation,” the official said.
If the plan is finalized, the Ministry of Justice won’t issue visas to those who do not complete the education program about Korea.
Currently, the ministry offers basic introductory classes on Korea in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Mongolia and the Philippines, only when the women want to take the course. The new plan is to make this course mandatory to obtain an F-2 visa, the kind of visa issued to who are married to a Korean spouse.
The family ministry also plans to resume the program in Cambodia, which was suspended due to venue problems and expand the service to Uzbekistan where more women are marrying Korean men.
“We will first make it mandatory in the countries we offer the program and expand to more countries,” the official said.
The Korean spouses also have to receive some education before bringing their foreign partners to the country. The justice ministry seeks to revise rules to disallow those who do not complete the course from applying for a visa for their spouse.