Law revision sought for better protection of migrant kids

By Kim Bo-eun

A lawyers’ group is seeking to revise a law to allow unregistered migrant children to report cases of abuse without fear of being deported.

Migrant children refer to those under the age of 18 who do not have Korean nationality. They are those who have either come to Korea with their parents or children who are born to foreign parents here.

In Korea, about 20,000 out of over 100,000 migrant children were unregistered as of March 2015, according to civic groups.

The Korean Women Lawyers Association is discussing with a group of lawmakers revisions to the law on children’s welfare.

The association held a symposium on revisions to the law, to help protect unregistered migrant children who have been abused and grant them status for a temporary stay.

The revisions state that police or government officials cannot notify the Korea Immigration Service of an unregistered migrant child when they receive a report of child abuse.

“Over 20,000 migrant children do not have legal stay status. Due to fears of being deported, they are unable to report it even when they are abused,” said Lee Sang-hee, a lawyer and the association’s deputy executive director.

“The law does not protect these children, and we are seeking law revisions so that they can be protected at every stage, from report to aftercare _ we are discussing these with lawmakers,” she said.

The group also proposed that facilities which do not accept unregistered migrant children when they need protection should be subject to punitive measures.

The lawyers’ group’s efforts follow an earlier proposal to protect unregistered migrant children by Rep. Keum Tae-sup of the Democratic Party of Korea last month.

Keum proposed law revisions that would ban authorities from putting unregistered migrant children in detention.

Under the current law, unregistered migrant children are put in detention when authorities review whether they should be subject to deportation or while they are in the process of carrying out the deportation.

“Regardless of the length of detention, this itself has a serious negative effect on the physical and mental health, and development of children,” the lawmaker stated in the proposal.

In addition, there is no limit to the period of detention, so detainees are unable to predict the length of their stay, and they end up being kept for extended periods of time.

Sub-committees under the United Nations have advised Korea to amend its practices.

“By banning the detention of migrant children and putting a limit on the period of detention, (the proposal) is intended to raise the standard of protecting foreigners to international standards and better guaranteeing the rights of foreigners including migrant children,” Keum said in the proposal.

If the authorities need to put migrant children under protection, the revision states that they must have access to education, food and medical services and be able to meet their guardian regularly. The revision also limits the protection period to six months and allows an extension of up to 12 months only in exceptional cases.