'Custody without time limit violates human rights': watchdog

By Kim Hyun-bin

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has called on the National Assembly to revise some clauses of the Immigration Control Law which in its view violate the human rights of foreigners subject to deportation, the commission said Tuesday.

Under the current clauses, foreigners who are ordered to leave the country are housed in detention centers if they cannot be deported immediately.

However, there are no detailed guidelines on how long they can be held in the facilities and the government has no objective and fair management and control system for deciding when to begin or extend custody.

Without legal limits, the detention period can be extended when there are issues involving unpaid wages, passport problems or ongoing lawsuits, and thus the clauses have been criticized for violating human rights.

“There needs to be a limit on how long a foreigner can be held in the facilities, and the government needs to implement objective management procedures,” an NHRCK official said. “There also need to be rules about the condition of children and the vulnerable.”

According to recent data released by the Ministry of Justice, there were 813 foreigners detained at detention facilities as of May. Eight of them have been there for more than one year. Between 2015 and 2017, there were 225 children under 18 being detained, and even a two-year-old was in the one of the centers for 50 days.

People who are detained have to endure psychological pressure not knowing how long they will be kept there, the official said. “Even a short period of time could traumatize a child.”

International human rights watchdogs, including the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, have pointed out the issue for years, calling on the Korean government to minimize the period of such detentions and refrain from detaining children separately from their parents.