Nam Hyun-woo has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2013, mostly covering business and politics. He currently belongs to the Business Desk where he covers topics such as emerging tech, AI, ICT and Korea's chaebol community. Prior to joining the team, he was the paper's correspondent for the presidential office of Korea during the Yoon Suk Yeol and Moon Jae-in administrations.
UNHCR Korea head values taekwondo's role
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Dirk Hebecker
By Nam Hyun-woo
By Nam Hyun-woo
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Korea Representative Dirk Hebecker said Monday he highly appreciates taekwondo’s role in helping refugees.
In an interview with The Korea Times on the sidelines of the International Sport Cooperation Conference 2015 at The Plaza Hotel in Seoul, the German welcomed the World Taekwondo Federation’s initiative for the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation, in which taekwondo instructors are deployed to refugee camps worldwide to teach the sport, Olympism and related values.
“I think it is a wonderful initiative,” said Hebecker. “It will not be a one-time initiative, but the beginning of a long relationship between the humanitarian foundation and refugee situations throughout the world,” adding the UNHCR is ready to work with the fund.
“Taekwondo is easy to popularize and undertake. So the World Taekwondo Federation’s initiative to help refugees is a fruitful new brotherhood to spread hope to refugees,” Hebecker said.
He stressed bringing change to the current refugee crisis “does not take much.”
“Simple change brings a big change. It doesn’t take too much. It needs will power, engagement, some strategic thinking hopefully to cover many different situations, but that will definitely have a big impact of lives of many refugee children and young people.”
The UNHCR, which is a mandated to protect, assist and find durable solutions for refugees or displaced people, will spend $7.1 billion on refugees and displaced people to provide them protection and safety, registration and documentation, recreational support and other types of aid which are vital for them.
During his presentation on Monday, he highly evaluated the role of sports in terms of helping refugees. “Sport helps people to restore human dignity,” he said. “It is so important for us because it becomes a source of joy in times of despair and helps refugees overcoming trauma and stress and creating motivation for life. Sports very oftentimes help bringing back the sense of normalcy to refugees,” he said.
Despite growing global recognition over the refugee crisis, there are calls that Korea still lacks awareness, citing the number of people the country accepted as refugees.
Korea is the only country in Asia to have its own refugee law after its introduction in July 2013. However, the country’s acceptance rate remains at a low level, with only 57 out of 1,574 applicants accepted in 2013 and a mere 60 out of 1,143 accepted a year earlier. According to the Chosun Ilbo, a total of 7,735 people have applied for refugee status in Korea since the country began to accept refugees in 1994, but only 522 had been accepted until August this year.
Hebecker said it is the question of “how you look at the numbers,” and added that in Korea, in addition to refugee status, people from some countries are given humanitarian status, which also gives them protection.